Removing pulley from pillar drill? (was: Progress 1 pillar drill knocking sound)

[pfilcek]

Hi folks - it's not specifically turning related but a few others on here have posted about this drill so I hoped someone might be able to help.

I recently bought an old Progress 1 pillar drill that's making a rhythmic sound when it's running. The chuck and quill appear to be straight but I think I can see a slight wobble on the front pulley that I suspect is rubbing on the casing below.

Does anyone know how to a) remove the drive belt from one of these, and b) remove the pulley wheels so that I can look at the shaft properly?

Thanks!

[Bill21]

Have you tried running it with the top cover removed? Sometimes mine makes a noise when the cover moves. To slack off the belt you need to loosen a couple of bolts on the sides and slide the motor assembly towards you. Can’t remember how the pulleys come off but having removed them myself a long time ago it must have been fairly obvious.

[pfilcek]

Have you tried running it with the top cover removed? Sometimes mine makes a noise when the cover moves. To slack off the belt you need to loosen a couple of bolts on the sides and slide the motor assembly towards you. Can’t remember how the pulleys come off but having removed them myself a long time ago it must have been fairly obvious.

Thanks Bill, I'll take a look for the bolts for the motor. It's a new purchase so I wasn't familiar with what to look for. Hopefully it'll just be some grub screws in there that will be more obvious once the belt is out of the way.

The noise is still present without the cover. I think it's the the very bottom edge of the front pulley knocking against a bit of the casing below it. On one side I can see a slide gap but on the other I can't, which coupled with that slight wobble, makes me think it's knocking on the casing as it rotates.

[pfilcek]

Well the belt is off thanks to Bill's advice about the motor bolts 

Now that I can rotate the front pulley it's very clearly rubbing on part of the casing below it. I can also see a dent in the bottom pulley which looks suspiciously like the bit it's rubbing on, so I suspect it's got damaged - there's every chance that I did it myself when moving and assembling the thing, since it weighs about 200kg 

I can't see any obvious way to remove the pulley from the spindle. There are no screws visible in any of the pulley grooves (unlike on the rear pulley where they are easy to see) and I don't want to start levering at it with a screwdriver as I suspect it'll just bend the softer metal. One thing that occurred to me was that if I remove the depth stop from the handle would that let the quill continue down and be pulled off the pulley?

[Wood spinner]

http://www.lathes.co.uk/progress-drills/page5.html

[Bill21]

I don’t think you’d drop the quill down enough just by removing the depth stop. I think you’d need to remove the hand wheel, pinion and return spring to do that. Even so, to remove the quill completely may require you to remove the head from the column, assuming it’s a bench model? I’ve had mine in bits twice over the years but I really can’t remember the exact process. Do a web search though, pretty sure they’ll be something about it on one of the other forums as it’s a popular machine.

[pfilcek]

http://www.lathes.co.uk/progress-drills/page5.html

Well, I've bought the manual now but annoyingly it doesn't say anything about how to remove the pulley!

Does anyone have insight from other drills? How would the pulley be attached to the spindle on other machines? Or any insight from the manual drawings of how the pulley is attached? It looks like it could be simply stuck into the bearings, but I can't tell where the circlips might be hiding!

[fuzzyturns]

Normally for this kind of thing the pulley would be pressure fitted onto the axle. It looks like the bearings are a tight slide fit, with a distancing bushel in between and held in place by a circlip at the end. If the circlip is missing, then obviously this could cause a change of placement of the whole arrangement into it's counterpart, which would add to the problem. Can you see a groove for the circlip at the end of the axle coming down from the pulley?

[pfilcek]

Normally for this kind of thing the pulley would be pressure fitted onto the axle. It looks like the bearings are a tight slide fit, with a distancing bushel in between and held in place by a circlip at the end. If the circlip is missing, then obviously this could cause a change of placement of the whole arrangement into it's counterpart, which would add to the problem. Can you see a groove for the circlip at the end of the axle coming down from the pulley?

I can't see anything that far down, but from looking at the drawings and your reply I convinced myself that it probably was just pressure fitted in so I tried levering it. I didn't want to use a screwdriver since that looked like it would bend the pulley metal so a wide pry bar on one side and a bolster chisel on the other and a sharp pull down on both together popped the pulley mechanism upwards enough to clear the casing it had been rubbing on.

Apart from having wasted a tenner on buying a manual I didn't really need, I'm happy as larry now. Thanks for all the suggestions and support!

[pfilcek]

Next job is to give it a bit of a clean up. It's running nicely now thanks to the folk here, and is in generally good condition so doesn't need restoration but it's been a while since some of the dust and crud was removed, and I can probably grease a few of the internals to keep it nice.

[fuzzyturns]

Just be prepare to repeat this exercise on a regular basis, because clearly there is room at the bottom seat of the bearings, and over time it will probably sit back down again.

[Bill21]

The Progress number one is a very nice drill and far superior to anything I’ve seen from the Far East. As owners are aware the column is solid steel. They bought a new Jet drill of similar size where I used to work and the column was a steel tube with a wall thickness of around 3mm!

[FifeMike]

I agree it is a quality machine. The one I have fallen heir to sadly has a chewed up nose on the spindle. As spares are unlikely does anyone think it could be reground to fit another Jacobs chuck or have a thread cut for a screw on chuck?
Meanwhile I just use 1 MT drill bits in the nose.

[Bill21]

As the spindle has a combined Jacobs taper on the outside and a Morse taper 1 socket there’s not a lot of material to work with. You may be able to get an MT1 to Jacobs taper Arbor? How badly is the Jacobs taper damaged? Mine is far from pristine with some deep scratches in it but the Chuck still stays on the taper.

[FifeMike]

Thanks Bill21. Yes the wall thickness on the spindle is only a couple of mm so not much to play with.
My spindle is grooved a bit (pic included), the chuck drops off after any bumping but if I smooth the groves it may get a better grip. The MT to chuck does work  - I used the one from my lathe - but I lose height above the table.