I think my drill head is jammed
Posted: Wed Jul 05, 2017 10:22 pm
I recently bought a Harbor Freight 3-in-1 off craigslist (a Central Machinery T5980). One of these:
https://goo.gl/photos/r8U2HckyshbNm5S56
The seller said it was brand new, but I'm having trouble getting the mill to work. The motor turns on and spins (sometimes), but the gear chuck for the drill part won't move. At first I thought the pulley tension was dialed up too tight, or too loose, but when I opened up the top to change the tension, I ran into my first problem. The pulley tension is really tight....so tight that I can't get it off. So that might be part of the problem.
The solution to this seemed easy. This is a picture of the inside of the top.
https://goo.gl/photos/LP3QuQnKGoRMKHT46
There are three bolts around the motor gears on the left. I figured that if I loosen those bolts, then I can get enough slack to take off the pulley. But if you look closely, loosening the bolts only allows me to move the motor more to the left, which increases the tension instead of loosening it.
So am I missing something really obvious here? Or do I need a new pulley? Any help is appreciated.
Oh, and I'm not sure if this is related, but I can't get the gears on the right to move at all (the mill). It doesn't matter if the motor is on or not. Which seems odd to me. I can easily move the lathe gears by hand if the machine is unplugged, but the mill gear seems stuck. Not sure if that's normal or not.
https://goo.gl/photos/r8U2HckyshbNm5S56
The seller said it was brand new, but I'm having trouble getting the mill to work. The motor turns on and spins (sometimes), but the gear chuck for the drill part won't move. At first I thought the pulley tension was dialed up too tight, or too loose, but when I opened up the top to change the tension, I ran into my first problem. The pulley tension is really tight....so tight that I can't get it off. So that might be part of the problem.
The solution to this seemed easy. This is a picture of the inside of the top.
https://goo.gl/photos/LP3QuQnKGoRMKHT46
There are three bolts around the motor gears on the left. I figured that if I loosen those bolts, then I can get enough slack to take off the pulley. But if you look closely, loosening the bolts only allows me to move the motor more to the left, which increases the tension instead of loosening it.
So am I missing something really obvious here? Or do I need a new pulley? Any help is appreciated.
Oh, and I'm not sure if this is related, but I can't get the gears on the right to move at all (the mill). It doesn't matter if the motor is on or not. Which seems odd to me. I can easily move the lathe gears by hand if the machine is unplugged, but the mill gear seems stuck. Not sure if that's normal or not.