SS 500 Repair myself or send it off

[ggurgiolo]

Hey Guys, here is my dilemma. I bent my driveshaft/quill trying to turn a bowl that was too large and maybe my gouge wasn’t sharp enough. 14” diameter 6” thick pecan blank that was hard as nails.

It looks like I can send it off to the guy on eBay and end up paying $350 for a tune up and new shaft/quill. If I do it my self it looks like it will be half of that. How hard is it to do this. Replace the Shaft/quill and Poly V belt and lube it up?

Thanks

[dusty]

Hey Guys, here is my dilemma. I bent my driveshaft/quill trying to turn a bowl that was too large and maybe my gouge wasn’t sharp enough. 14” diameter 6” thick pecan blank that was hard as nails.

It looks like I can send it off to the guy on eBay and end up paying $350 for a tune up and new shaft/quill. If I do it my self it looks like it will be half of that. How hard is it to do this. Replace the Shaft/quill and Poly V belt and lube it up?

Thanks

This decision is really based on just how mechanically inclined you are but I believe you can do what you have described on your own.

View this video and decide for yourself. While you are at it, you might want to browse through the others that are available online as part of the Sawdust Sessions.
http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Arch ... _Index.htm

All the others:
http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/Sawdust_Sessions.htm

If you don't have a manual, I strongly recommend that you acquire one.

There are three or four on ebay now.

[ggurgiolo]

Thanks a bunch Dusty. I can't believe it's that easy. This is a no brainer. Any idea how hard it is to replace the Poly V belt? I figure that has never been done to my machine and with it's age should be. Once again thanks.

[a1gutterman]

Thanks a bunch Dusty. I can't believe it's that easy. This is a no brainer. Any idea how hard it is to replace the Poly V belt? I figure that has never been done to my machine and with it's age should be. Once again thanks.

Hi Glenn,

Dusty already gave you the information that you need. If you take the time to review all the Sawdust Sessions, you will learn a lot. Here is a link to the Sawdust Session done on the Poly V belts.

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Archives/SS104/SS104_Replacing_Belts.htm

[beeg]

I'm guessing that by the drive shaft, that's the shaft on the quill?
If ya follow Dusty's second link, you should find an sawdust session about the poly v belt. Is your present belt frayed, cracked or worn out?

[cincinnati]

Like the others said with the video it should be an easy fix for you.

On another note, If one is going to have the Shopsmith serviced by someone, why send it to some guy on e-bay when Shopsmith has a service department.
Remember if Shopsmith were to go under the e-bay guy is not going to have the ability to get parts. Support Shopsmith.

[allsas]

I watched the sawdust sessions and thought that most of the tear down was pretty straight forward. I had to watch the videos several times to get the details and got some help putting bearings on the drive sleeve.

There are some printable narratives and procedures lists that help when disassembling and assembling the SS, in case you couldn't keep track of the parts when tearing down the SS.

Big committment is upgrading to the poly V drive belt, new Drive sleeve w/bearings, idler shaft, and new double bearing quill. With that many new parts, repair should be easy. The eBay reconditioner will repair subsystems and the whole headstock does not need to be shipped, just the drive sleeve or quill.
SS prices for parts and the reconditioner's price for bearing replacement seemed reasonable

I tried to list all of the sources in the Reactivation narrative and you can preview all of the steps before starting.

If the headstock casting is OK, the job of upgrading is straight forward and doesn't need too many tools. Which parts to replace or repair is the only problem. Here is a previous perspective on your predicament.