Shopsmith Forums

I was cutting some wood with my Shopsmith 10er when the saw slowed a bit biting into it. Full stop, unplug, investigate. To my horror, I saw the outmost sleeve of the speed changer was touching/grinding against one of its supports. Last two steps: review the manuals, then post for help.

I'm trying to figure out how to back the sheave-pulley further down the spindle, but I'm really cautious about fixing something before I know what happened. Where have I gone wrong? And more importantly, the fix?
Any help is greatly appreciated -

The outer sheaves are held in place with set screws. Probably the one in your sheave has loosened and allowed the sheave to move. There are two different speed changer manuals. One has more service/trouble shooting info in it than the other one. There is a measurement for the distance between the two outer sheaves. You need to set the sheaves to the specified distance and tighten the set screw.

Aces John, thanks for the tip - I'll search for those measurements and make sure it's sorted.

Scott,

The distance recommended on the Trouble Shooting page is not to exceed 2" on the Instructions in the PDF attached below.

_ .
Ideally the belts should be set so one belt is at the outer edge of the pulley while the other belt is just short of touching the inner sleeve. 2" will achieve that with a new pair of belts. As the belts wear adjusting the sheaves inward will correct for wear keeping them in the correct position.

Also see the Speed Changer Setup article on Skip Campbell's web page.

http://www.mkctools.com/speed%20changer%20setup.htm