Mark VII Caster Interference

[chapmanruss]

techy2493,

You said (in part),

I bought a Shopsmith Mark V with the upgraded casters installed and find they're not quite in the right place on one side.

I am guessing you have the 3" Caster Upgrade on your Mark V. There have been discussions about problems with this previously. On older Retractable Caster sets the Foot Pedal is closer to the outer edge than on later Retractable Caster sets. The difference is about an inch. If it is the Foot Pedal that is interfering with the casters rotating, you have a couple of options. You can "trim" down the Foot Pedal to allow the casters to rotate or you could drill a new hole in each Drive Rod moving the Foot Pedal a little bit toward the middle to allow clearance. Newer Retractable Caster Sets have the Foot Pedal a bit closer to the middle which avoids interference with the casters rotating. If neither of those options appeal to you than you could get a later version of the Retractable Casters or different wheels needing less clearance for rotation.

[techy2493]

techy2493,

You said (in part),

I bought a Shopsmith Mark V with the upgraded casters installed and find they're not quite in the right place on one side.

I am guessing you have the 3" Caster Upgrade on your Mark V. There have been discussions about problems with this previously. On older Retractable Caster sets the Foot Pedal is closer to the outer edge than on later Retractable Caster sets. The difference is about an inch. If it is the Foot Pedal that is interfering with the casters rotating, you have a couple of options. You can "trim" down the Foot Pedal to allow the casters to rotate or you could drill a new hole in each Drive Rod moving the Foot Pedal a little bit toward the middle to allow clearance. Newer Retractable Caster Sets have the Foot Pedal a bit closer to the middle which avoids interference with the casters rotating. If neither of those options appeal to you than you could get a later version of the Retractable Casters or different wheels needing less clearance for rotation.

Thanks, I'll check this as well, but I believe it's an installation problem, the metal frame of the Shopsmith coming into contact with the ground because the casters are not going down quite far enough. I suspect poor application of the template or failure to use a punch to start the hole in exactly the right place, in this case being slightly too high causing the casters to cause the frame to only just clear the ground by a couple of millimeters which is not sufficient on the less than perfectly flat garage floor.

[JPG]

Initial design target was lift 1/8" and 1/4" off the floor. There is enough slop in the caster retention ring to allow the wheels to touch the floor at fully lowered position, but no load is passed to the casters(base firmly toughing the 'ground'.