8/1/2007 77.5 hours labor
Page 8

Day before yesterday in the afternoon I received a package. It was the leather belt I have been waiting on. I couldn't stand it and went to the shop and installed it. I had to remove some bolts and do a couple of things but I fired it up. It springs to life and after just a moment I watched the new belt roll rather quickly across the shop. Oh well, never expected it to run perfect right off the bat.

After a little tuning I got it to stay on and got to check the bearings and just listen to it run. It's a noisy sucker! The aluminum puller rings like a bell. When the lacing's hit it doesn't ring but it make a lot of noise! I may change that pulley out, it really an irritating noise. But it ran for the first time in at least 20 years. Probably a lot more!

Last night I had to pull the head apart because I had a leak, but Oh what a leak! It was the kind of leak to be proud of! Oil everywhere! There were no gaskets on in when I got it and mistakenly assumed I wouldn't need one either. So off came the head and I removed the bearing box. I looked and thought a while trying to come up with something to make a gasket out of. Everything was closed or I would have just bought some cork gasket material, then I had great idea. I took a pair of chemical gloves that were to small for me, cut up the rubber cuff and made two gaskets. BRILLIANT!! Works perfectly. No oil drips this morning.

After getting it back together I ran it a good bit and checked the bearings, belt etc. looking for problems. There were some minor issues but nothing to serious. The biggest problem was I discovered that the motor pulley had a stripped thread on the hub. A quick trip to town just caught the ACE Hardware about to close. Because I had drill and tap though the pulleys outside hub I was concerned about finding a drill bit long enough but they had one. I was also concerned about the tap reaching. It started but the end was soon inside the pulley and a wrench wouldn't fit. Took some creative thinking but I found a way to grab the tap. Inserted the helicoil and all was good again.

Today I spent at least an hour cleaning out the screw holes and screws on the head. Mounting the blades, connecting a spring to the guard, adjusting the height, which I am still looking for a better way than what I did and squaring the fence ect. Finally it was all done and it was time for the first test cut. I fired it up, gingerly inserted a board and saw chips starting to fly out. It was rather uneventful.

So, it's basically ready to use. I am still looking for a cover or a new enclosure for the electicals and I need to mount it all permanently. Now it is time to use it and find it's problems and tweak it. And still need to paint the stupid pulley!