Wide belt sander. Difficult raising the bed. Grizzly G9983

[dirk martin]

I've got the G9983 wide belt from Grizzly.
One of the main drive belts broke, after years of use, so we had to take half the machine apart to replace it yesterday.
In doing so, we lowered the table all the way.
The belt repair went easy enough, however, the table is really, really hard to raise.
We never had this issue before when we were using it.
It takes 2 hands to turn the wheel, that raises the bed, and it requires a lot of strength. Very difficult.
We've oiled the main lifting piston ("the quill" I think Grizzly calls it), to no avail.

Has anyone encountered this, with this sander?
15" wide belt.

[Jim Andrew]

I'll give this thread a bump. Interesting to see what problems you have with your sander, Dirk. Know what to watch for next.

[glenn bradley]

Its a rack and pinion elevation system. I assume the column lock handle is backed off ;-) Does the rack appear clean? No metal particles?

[dirk martin]

Column lock is backed off.
It is so stiff, it was all we could do to raise it a quarter turn, with two hands.
I spoke to my sister, whom also has one.
We both use them daily, heavily.

She had the same issue a while ago.
She said she had to take the whole quill apart.....ugg.

So, we took the table off, and finally got the quill out of the machine.
Inverted it, and moved it the full travel distance, both directions. There was some gunk in the track and pinion. Plus the quill was pretty dry.
So we lubed everything up pretty well, and worked it up and down....and it all freed up well.

Got the whole thing back together, and now we're up and running again just fine.

Don't know how to avoid this from happening in the future again, but once every 5 years isn't too bad I guess......

[glenn bradley]

Yay! glad you got 'er fixed.

[Steve Jenkins]

It's amazing how little gunk it takes to jam up the works. My planer had problems raising and lowering and looking at the threads on the posts they didn't look bad but I cleaned them and it works fine

[Jim Andrew]

Dirk, did you figure out what was causing the vibration you were getting a while back?

[dirk martin]

I'm not 100% sure, Jim, but I'm 90% sure I figured it out.
The machine wasn't perfectly level.
You couldn't tell, but if I jammed a shim under one of the feet, it went away. I just happened to try that for the heck of it, and it took care of it.
The vibration was pretty significant, too. But, it makes sense also, why my sister wasn't experiencing it, with hers....she, of course, is on a different floor.