old delta drill press

[hadley perdue]

The multistep pulley over the spindle has an aluminum plate immediately under the largest pulley. It thus is at the bottom of that pulley. I cannot figure out what its function is. There is a movable pin that can lock the plate to the drill press body or, alternately, to the bottom pulley. It has a grease fitting on the outer edge. Can anyone tell me what this is and how it should be used?

[Jeff Gunter]

I have a similar sounding pulley on an old Buffalo drill press. It's quite possibly a reversing plate. If it is then here's the scoop: 1) insert a rod in the bottom plate (the Al plate may have a threaded hole) 2)look on the top of the press to see if there is a small-ish (1/4 to 1/2" or so) hole, and thread a rod into that 3) by hand spin the pulley around in normal motor direction so the two rods hit, 4) turn on the power and watch the spindle run backwards. Be careful, if the conjecture is wrong you'll want to shut things down in a hurry.

Good luck,

Jeff

[hadley perdue]

Thank you,Jeff. Mine is not of the sort you described. The aluminum plate or disk I described can be pinned to either the pulley or to the DP body. It is a model 20-400 and appears to have been made in 1960. Thanks, Hadley

[Myk Rian]

I thought you were getting some good info on OWWM about this.
Is it a planetary gear system?
As asked for there, photos will help a lot.

[Jeff Gunter]

Ready fire aim. I re-read your post. I would bet when plate is pinned to the press, it activates the reversing gears. So instead of using a set of rods to lock the bottom plate, you drop a pin into the casting. Still sounds like a reversing gear set up to me. Also if there were no moving parts inside there would be no reason for a grease zerk.