Drill Press advice needed, please...

[Clisby Clark]

I have a mid-90's 20 inch Craftsman Made in China Drill Press. Today I noticed that while trying to tension the belts at 1800 rpm that the tension lever would slip and release tension just before I could get the proper tension. Here are my questions...

1. Should I replace the original belts? If so, would you recommend link belts?

2. If the belts don't need replacing, should I try to pull the pulleys and look inside the housing to repair the tensioning mechanism?

Any other ideas/tips/advice will be greatly appreciated.

[david brum]

Clisby, it sounds like something is wrong with your tensioner. Since you have some kind of lever system, I'll bet something simple like a bolt vibrated off. If you need parts, that is one thing that Sears is pretty good about. If it is unfixable, no big deal. My DP was designed without a lever. I pull the motor away from the frame with a big screwdriver and tighten the fixing knob. It's worked fine for many, many years. This is to say that if your tensioning lever has failed, it isn't strictly necessary to replace it.

To answer you question about belts, you can run a link belt if needed. I replaced a pair of very lumpy old belts with Fenner link belts a few years ago. It turned my DP into a different machine. It just whirs with a happy hum now. I have gotten belt slippage with really big forstner bits (4") but I think you'd get that with anything.