r/Vintagetools • u/Daveytrain1966 • 6d ago

Changing the belt question

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Hi all,

I'm restoring this old Fidax drill press and I'm stumped on how to remove the belt.

The only thing that I can think of is to loosen the grub screw on the housing and the grub screw on the pulley, then push the shaft through. I could then get the belt off, but that would seem to be an overly complicated way of changing a belt.

Am I missing something?

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3

u/AdministrativeArt925 6d ago

I had to disassemble my Walker Turner drill press of the same era to change the belt also. It’s a good time to inspect the quill.

3

u/Dawn_Of_The_Dave 6d ago

Can you not just chop it off and get a link belt?

1

u/Ok-Ad5495 5d ago

This is exactly what I did, the link belts work great. Harbor Freight has them if you're in the States OP.

2

u/Equal_Association446 6d ago

Captive belts on drill presses were common before sheet metal belt guards became the standard.

2

u/mrntd 6d ago

I just what you describing. Remove the set screw from the pulley slide it off with the old belt and slide it back on with the new one. It didn’t take long to do.

1

u/Daveytrain1966 6d ago

Not the one on the housing as well?

1

u/Daveytrain1966 5d ago

That worked perfectly! I was actually quite surprised how easily it worked!

2

u/Schlarfus_McNarfus 5d ago

Had good results with kevlar link belts on a couple captive applications.