Shopsmith Forums

I is hard to tell from the picture if the Poly V belt is in proper alignment. If it doesn't look right to you, you should re-align it. Otherwise misalignment will cause the belt wear.

Keep in mind that while turning by hand you are moving all the drive parts including the motor so more effort is needed than simply turning individual parts. The Quill, Drive Sleeve, Idler Shaft and Motor should should all have been turning freely before they were reinstalled. If the Poly V belt is misaligned it may be harder to turn too.

I'm confused about all the grooves on the drive shaft. It it supposed to be in the middle or is it ok as long as it is fully on some grooves?

I'm not an expert at this. I have done it only once but I contend that the all is well when the belt is vertical to the upper pulley (spindle) no matter which grooves it is in. This would indicate proper alignment of the two pulleys while allowing for deviations in position elsewhere.

Why is your belt so much tighter than others???

Either your belt is shorter than others

OR

the physical placement of the other components is different.

The belt belongs two grooves back from where it currently is.

Note the color difference in the grooves of the drive sleeve pulley.

By positioning the eccentric 'slot' at 06:00 there should be sufficient belt slack to move the belt back two grooves.

Fixed it by rolling a strip of aluminum can between the belt and those grooves, then pulling it sideways. Even at 6 o'clock my belt was pretty tight and didn't want to move otherwise. Very happy I didn't have to take everything apart again since, because the belt started out tight, getting that part put together was very difficult to begin with.

And I'm immediately glad I did move it over. Above I mentioned everything felt a little tight when trying to turn it by hand, it all spins *much* easier now.

beeg wrote: ↑Sun May 09, 2021 9:57 pm GREAT solution on moving the belt.

+1