Shop Fox W1741- Grizzly G0490 Pulley and Belt Noise

[Craig Wahl]

I have an older Shop Fox w1741 8-inch jointer that has a history of the regular belt noise issues (start up slap, banging when cutting power, and excessive vibration) and was wondering if anyone has found a decent remedy. I've spent a decent portion of the last day or so looking at internet discussions on this and haven't been able to find any real great answers. It seems like the ribbed v-belt upgrade has only been marginally successful. I tried using a link belt, but I don't have enough clearance. I have also tried repeatedly tightening the set screws and they continue to work themselves loose. My next thought is to try buying better quality standard v-belt pulleys and a better quality belt and seeing if that works. I am also planning on modifying my belt guard.

I tried calling Shop Fox support and the guy I spoke with said it all was my fault cause the belt wasn't tight enough. I had about 3/4 of an inch deflection in the belt and he said any more than 1/4 would cause problems. That is WAY tighter than the W1741 manual says. I checked the DJ-20 manual for reference and Delta recommends 1 inch deflection. I also considered upgrading to Delta pulley's but it looks like they are 5/8 bore pulleys and the Shop Fox is 3/4. Presumably because of the bigger motor. They are also about $125.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Craig,

Have you tried putting some thread locker on the set screws? I would try a fine thread blue loc-tite removable type thread locker before I ordered new pulleys.

Belts must remain tight to function normally and pulleys must be in alignment with each other. What does the Shopfox manual stipulate the deflection should be?

Obviously the bore of the new pulleys must be the same for new pulleys to function.

[Jerry Bruette]

Craig,

I think I would start with some new set screws and then either loctite them or double them up so the top one jams the bottom one. A new belt wouldn't hurt if the one you have is glazed.

Make sure your pulleys are aligned...the grooves not the hubs. I like to use a string for this, it's easier than a straight edge.

The purpose of putting the notches in a v-belt is so it has a better wrap on small diameter pulleys. It has nothing to do with vibration control, or reducing belt slap.

Your belts sound like they're too loose. You really can't compare the specs for belt deflection on two different machines unless the shaft centers are the same distance apart. The spec for belt deflection is dependent on the size (width) of your belt and the distance between the shaft centers. Unless you have a good amount of experience tightening belts it can be hard to judge just how much deflectin you have without using a gauge. You may squeeze them tighter than me and neither of us squeeze as hard as the machine assembler in the factory so how do we measure that magical 1/2 or 3/4 inch of deflection?

All that said I think I would listen to the tech at Shop Fox and put about 1/4 inch of deflection in the belt.

Jerry

[glenn bradley]

I had read through quite a few of the discussions prior to ordering my G0490 several years ago so I guess I was ready ;-) I made sure the pulleys were tight and double set-screwed them. I replaced the stock belt with a link belt. I triple checked pulley alignment (a real pain on these machines) and raised the upper pulley guard so it didn't get rattled during slowdown. The difference before and after is night and day. As most of us know, Grizzly has now dea;t with these issues and the new machines have things like serpentine belts and enclosed dust chutes right out of the box.

G0490X-belt-pulley-check-2011 (1).jpg . G0490X-belt-pulley-check-2011 (4).jpg . G0490X-belt-pulley-check-2011 (5).jpg . f-belt-guard-stand-off.jpg

[Bill Space]

Hi,

Something that surprised me with my G4490X that I bought this spring, was that the adjusting the feet on the end where the foot-pedal lift mechanism is, made a world of difference with respect to start up/shut down vibration, and vibration in general.

I think initially the two pads on that end were too high on mine. I got a bang when transitioning from the mobile mode to the stationary mode. Also had what I though was excessive shocks/vibrations on starts and stops. I adjusted these two feet so I had about a quarter inch drop between raised to move, and lowered for stationary position, modes. After doing this things improved considerably.

My guess is that before I adjusted things so the jointer was sitting on four points, it was actually sitting on three points, the two stationary wheels and the one pivoting wheel on the opposite end.

Once my jointer was supported on four corners things improved greatly. I became a happy camper.

Not sure if yours is the same vintage as mine, but in any case if you have two adjustable support pads on the end with the foot pedal, make sure they are both resting solidly on the floor. Made all the difference in the world for me...

Edit: I guess this might help with your jointer. I see it is not the G0490...in any event, four corner support seemed to make a huge difference for me. Something to consider...

Bill

[Cary Falk]

The G0490 changed to a serpentine belt and pulleys a few years ago as seen on page 42 to fix that problem. http://mydigimag.rrd.com/publication/?i=167865&p=39. They used to sell it as a retro kit. I don't see it. It might be worth a call to Grizzly. The 1741 is the same as the G0490 but you might want to check shaft sizes just to be sure.

[Tom Jacobs]

Craig, check for a missing key (small metal bar) that keeps the motor shaft and pulley wheel aligned. There are matching notches in the shaft and wheel where the key goes. That is the problem I had with my 490.

[Craig Wahl]

Thanksfor everyone's responses. I spent a lot of time Sunday remounting mymotor and pulley's and things seem to be a lot better. I will try torespond to everyone's input.

Ken-I haven’t tried loc-tite yet. I’ve hadsome bad experiences with loc-tite so now I’m a little leery to use it. I am planning on using the weakest loc-titeto reassemble everything when I get it all figured out. The Shop Fox manual is pretty funny regardingthe belt tension. It basically just saysto give it go with hand pressure and see how things work out. It specifically says not to use a “mechanicaldevice.” I added a set of long bolts touse as anchor points to use c-clamps to tension the belt and keep the oppositeside of the motor level. That systemworked fairly well. The “hand pressure”only thing from the manual seems pretty moronic. I have attached a picture of it for your amusement.

Jerry-I like the double set screw thing. I thinkI will try that instead of loc-tite. Ibought a car once and the previous owner loc-tited everything with the permanentloc-tite. The simplest jobs on it were apain cause of it. Now I’m reluctant touse it unless it’s absolutely necessary. The notch thing makes sense. Ibought a good Gates belt and for whatever reason the belt slap and a lot of thevibration are gone. I retightened thebelt with about what I would say is ¾ an inch deflection. I referenced the Delta manual because themachines are supposedly more or less identical which is somewhat confirmed bylooking at the manuals. I have attacheda picture of the corresponding page of the DJ-20 manual.

Glenn-Thanks for the pics. I see you changedout the left washer so you could run a link belt. Maybe I will do the same. I bought a link belt before the Gates. If it makes much difference I may just scrapthe Gates. Some people are reportingthat the serpentine belts don’t really help with much, that’s why I’m a littlereluctant to upgrade by machine. You’reright, the pulley alignment seems to be a key factor. After finishing up with my machine on Sunday itwas keeping a nickel on edge through startup, getting up to speed and shutdownat the far end of the infeed table. It’sstill making a heck of a racket though. Itsounds like a blender with rocks in it or something. It’s not that I want my machine to sound “pretty,”it’s just fairly obvious from the sound of it that things are not 100% or even70% copacetic.

Bill-I will check the feet and its footing. Iwas pretty careful about making sure everything was firmly planted, butdoubling checking couldn’t hurt.

Cary-Its my understanding the 1741 and 0490 use the same pulleys and belts (andpretty much everything else). Otherpeople that have done the switch seem pretty neutral on it. I think I’m more inclined to buy a balancedmatching cast pulley from a machine shop and see how that works. Through this whole deal, my current lowerpulley has managed to get gouged out a bit. Because of the gouging, now it really wants to loosen set screws andwalk around on the shaft. I will need toreplace the pulley whatever I do. Luckily the shaft is still like new somehow.

Tom-Yeah a missing key is what prompted this whole thing. As soon as it fell out I had an idea whathappened. I have to laugh that the firstthing the Shop Fox tech I spoke with said was “I’m not aware of any problemswith the pulleys on these.” I think theproblem with these is that Grizzly and Shop Fox haven’t figured out yet thatyou can’t add a 3 hp motor to a machine that was designed for a 1.5 hp motorwithout beefing things up a little. Myguess is that the motor bracket may play a role in this also. I wonder if it allows for a little too muchflex which starts all of these problems. I wonder what the setup was on the old Powermatics? They always seem smooth, even after being inservice for 30 or 40 years.

Thanksagain for all the responses. I will leteveryone know how this all turns out.
W1741 belt page.jpgDJ-20 belt page.jpg

[Craig Wahl]

Sorry, it looks like the forum messed up my formatting when I posted this.

[Craig Wahl]

It looks like the Grizzly G0490 manual for serpentine belt models does specify a 1/4 inch of deflection. I may try tightening up my belt a little more to see if a little more tension helps. grizzly belt page.jpg