trigger for milwaukee hammer drill

[stevo wis]

I have a milwaukee d handle hammerdrill model 5398 that just quit running while i was using it. Its about 25 years old, but hasnt been worked hard. The brushes look almost like new. I am trying to figure out if its the trigger but it has a lot of wires coming out of it. There is a black and white in to the trigger (right side on picture). Coming out are a red and two thin blacks (left side of picture). when i push the trigger i get continuity between the black in and the heavy red. Does anyone know how to test to make sure trigger is good or if there is anything else I can check before hauling it into someone?

thanks,
Stevo

[Charles Lent]

Depending on your drill's serial number www.ereplacementparts.com should have what you need. Just go to this page and select the exploded view and parts list for the serial number of your hammer drill.

I have bought quite a bit from them and it has always been a good experience.

Charley

[Jerome Stanek]

check to see that you are getting power to the switch. I had that happen before and it was a broken cord

[Paul McGaha]

check to see that you are getting power to the switch. I had that happen before and it was a broken cord

Good advice here I think, It could well be a problem with the cord.

PHM

[stevo wis]

Hi Guys,
I finally got back to my drill. I did test the cord and I do have power on both sides of the switch, so its got to be something inside the drill. Does anyone have any ideas what to check next?
thanks,
Stevo

[Charles Lent]

Brushes. They may have worn off and are now too short to touch the commutator, or one of the wire connections from the power cord/switch may be broken.

Charley

[Andy Pratt]

Most common problem is the switch, followed by cord and brushes. All are cheap to test and the cord is rarely bad unless you see damage to it. At 25 years old it wouldn't hurt to just replace the brushes as general maintenance at this point, if the switch is cheap just do that too and you probably have a tool for another 25. If you know you cooked the drill before it stopped (smoke etc) it is probably not worth fixing since you would likely spend $60-100 for a roughly $100 drill. If you didn't, it is probably simple inexpensive parts.

This guide should help: http://www.ereplacementparts.com/article/968/Diagnosing_Electric_Power_Tools_101.html

Most power tool problems are fixable at a good value by anyone with access to parts (ereplacement.com parts is good), who doesn't value their time at a professional rate. If you are avoiding paying work to fix this, just buy a new tool, if it is a fun hobby to fix it (which it is for me), and parts are available, you can usually replace most of the wearable parts on the entire tool for less than the cost of a new one. Probably you'll just have to replace $10-50 in parts and will learn something in the process, so I would say to go at it with a multimeter and follow a troubleshooting guide and then buy parts accordingly. If time isn't an issue you can figure you have at least a $100 budget before it was a bad idea, and you almost certainly will get it fixed for less than that.