A few years ago I was given an old King-Seeley/Craftsman drill press. It has always been a bit rough, but it seemed to drill straight enough holes. Last night drilling holes for pen blanks the “not quite right” noises got out of hand and I had to stop and find out what was going on.
I think the problem is that the spindle pulley (27415) isn’t being held correctly. With the spindle raised, the spindle pulley rests on a collar attached to the spindle. When I lower the drill bit, the pulley follows (i.e. goes down) along for about a half inch till it bottoms out (I’m not sure what stops it) and the spindle can continue to be lowered. Also sometimes when I turned it off, it sounded like a bearing was still spinning. After looking around for a few minutes I found two screws (X565) in the head stock that seem to be meant to hold the outside of the lower bearing (18212) on the spindle pulley are worn to the nub. I’m guessing the screws could support the pulley, but it seems like a strange way to do it. The screws are listed as being No. 8-32 x ¾” in the manual for a similar drill press that I found at oldwwmachines.com (mine is a 103.23141 and the manual is for a 103.23130). I’ve included a picture from the manual that I hope illustrates what I tried to describe.
So, my question…Is it correct to have these two screws hold the lower bearing of the spindle pulley? If not what else may be broken or missing?
If this doesn’t make sense, let me know and I’ll try to explain it better.
Thanks.
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