A couple months ago the motor on my bandsaw went up in smoke. It seemed pretty simple to just trot down to the local farm supply and pick up a new motor. I couldn't get the exact base plate, but it will work.
Got it home and set out to remove the old motor pulley to put on the new motor. As soon as I put any pressure on the puller it just snapped. The old pulley was made out of some sort of pot metal with essentially zero strength. So it's back to the farm supply for a pulley, all they have are these strange stamped sheet metal things, but what the hey. When I tried to install it there was no way I could get it on the shaft, the fit was just too tight. I managed to work it partway before it jammed and then the puller reduced this new pulley to a rather interesting free-form metal sculpture when I tried to remove it.
Now I have in hand a proper cast iron pulley. The shaft and bore both are supposed to be 5/8", but I still can't get the pulley to go on. So what do I do next? I'm thinking that I could heat the pulley with my heat gun then slip it quickly in place, but I'm not sure that will really work. Otherwise I could buff a few thou. off the shaft - it seems to be a bit rough, so that might be a good idea anyway.
What do you all think? I'm already torqued at having to replace the motor on a saw that I'm going to upgrade out of in a few months, but the saw was free and I need it sometime between *now* and *real soon*, and I'm not going to have the long green for the new saw until at least into the new year... soooo........
Tim Douglass