Hi all,
I'm trying to strip a Porter-Cable 879879 router head / motor (bearings and brushes gone) but can't get the collet chuck off the motor spindle. The reason it's difficult is there is no real / safe way to hold the motor / armature to be able to put any real force on the chuck to remove it (the only thing of any size I could hold is the commutator and I don't want to do that!).
So far I've tried holding the assembly in the lathe top shaft in the 3 jaw, chuck on the dead centre so it stays steady) , Plus-Gas, heat and tapping the spanner round (to try to shock it undone) but as yet no luck (it just rotates in the lathe chuck / vice soft-jaws etc).
In case it helps it looks like this:
I guess if it comes to it I could carefully grind through the chuck to release it from the thread (once I know a replacement is available) and I'll give the Plus-Gas + heat + tapping some further goes but are there any tricks for this sort of thing please (apart from not taking such things on of course). ;-) [1]
I did think a rattle gun might help but the chuck only has two flats rather than a hex nut (nothing stopping me making it into a nut I suppose).
I'm assuming (dangerous I know) that the chuck is held on with a conventional thread as the exposed collet thread is conventional.
There was the thought of putting expanding foam down between the armature and outer casing in the hope that would hold it firmly and then, once the chuck is off, dissolving the foam out with acetone but I didn't think the motor windings would appreciate that? ;-(
Cheers, T i m
[1] I asked if I could borrow my mates nice, big, computer controlled, flat bed router table and he said "Yes, anytime, if you can fix it!".