drill chuck removal

[Tim W]

I need to change the chucks on a couple of small electric drills. First I remove the LH threaded screw from inside the jaws of the chuck. Then what? The small section of shaft between the chuck and the drill has flats on it but do I unscrew the chuck or knock it off with a hammer? Is the thread LH or RH? would rathe know before applying brute force.

Tim W

[Joe AutoDrill]

Lock the largest allen key into the chuck jaws that will fit securely... Put the "short" end in the chuck and the long end pointing outwards... Take a hammer and smack the end of teh allen key so as to "spin" the chuck quickly in a counterclockwise direction while looking into the jaws (I think I got that right...)

After a few smacks, the chuck should come loose. The faster and more "snappy" your strike is, the better...

Or as I just found on the web...

DRILL CHUCK REMOVAL TRY THIS. REMOVE THE CHUCK SCREW ( LEFT HAND THREAD) IF THERE IS ONE ON YOUR DRILL. THEN PLACE YOUR DRILL ON THE BENCH WITH THE HANDLE FACING AWAY FROM YOU. NOW CHUCK UP THE LARGEST ALLEN WRENCH YOU CAN WITH THE LONG SIDE STICKING UP FROM THE CHUCK. ROTATE THE CHUCK AND THE WRENCH UP TO ABOUT A 45 DEGREE ANGLE ABOVE THE BENCH TOP. WITH A MEDIUM WEIGHT HAMMER STRIKE A QUICK HARD BLOW DOWNWARD ON THE ALLEN WRENCH HANDLE. THIS WILL IN MOST CASES SPIN YOUR DRILL CHUCK LOOSE. FOR MORE REPLACEMENT OR FOR PERFORMING TOOL SERVICE PROCEDURES OR CHUCK REPLACEMENT JUST REVERSE THESE STEPS.

FOR MORE TOOL TIPS OR QUESTIONS CALL STEVE 1-800-838-8665

Regards, Joe Agro, Jr. [phone]

01.908.542.0244 Automatic / Pneumatic Drills: Spindle Drills:

[Tim W]

[...]

Thanks, mate

Tim w

[Leon]

Unscrew the chuck in the opposite direction that you used to remove the screw.

A good rule of thumb, remove almost anything that spins in the same direction that the machine or tool normally spins when in normal operation and tighten in the opposite spin direction.

[Leuf]

You may be able to get a wrench on the flats on the shaft to act as a spindle lock, then do the normal thing with the allan wrench. When I did mine I had a similar situation and wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not. I ended up doing it without doing that, because it seemed too solid when I tried that and I was afraid of damaging the shaft. But once I finally got it off it certainly looked like that would have worked. I found the wrench for my router fit just about perfectly, and was the only one narrow enough to get in the space.

-Leuf

[Larry W]

The chuck on a hand held drill has a RH thread. Most do not have an accessible way to lock the shaft from turning while unscrewing the chuck. The classic way is to tighten the short leg of the biggest 'L' shaped allen wrench that fits in the chuck, then smack the free end with a hammer in the appropriate direction. After removing the LH thread retaining screw of course!

I have a very old, very heavy duty B&D drill that has a jacobs taper chuck. It has some patent dates on it from the 1920s; I've never seen any other hand-held that didn't have a threaded chuck.