Help Changing the V-Belts in my Wide Belt Sander

[Jay Houghton]

I've worked on a lot of vintage as well as new tools and I'm stumped. I got this 15" open end wide belt sander used this past year and one of the belts broke so I need to replace both of them. They run from the motor which is the base up to the driven drum. This is the model with the platen so it's got three drums. Grizzly and many others sold this under their name and this one is a Bridgewood. The problem is I can't find a way of getting the belt on the drum end of the machine because it appears the shaft is supported on each side of the pulley, so there's no access to put a belt around it without taking the drum apart and out of the bearings. At least that's what I can tell from close inspection. There's also no room between frame of the machine and the outside of the pulley bearing to slip a belt on anyway. My solution was to get a couple PowerTwist belts which can be installed by linking the belt. Not ideal in this case because PowerTwist belts do not transmit as much power as a V-belt and thus have been slipping if I try and work the machine too hard.

Nothing I can find online, in the manual or from Grizzly. This model has been replaced by one that has an open end on the pulley so replacing a belt would be a cinch.

Anyone got a suggestion?

Jay

[Ron Selzer]

watching, I have the same sander

[Jay Houghton]

Well...amazingly I figured this out and there's a lesson in it for me. I was making assumptions about how the rollers were mounted without consulting the owners manual or observing the fact that the belts had been changed once before. Notice in the first shot that the red paint was scarred a little which indicates that those nuts had been removed once before.
I then inspected it a lot more closely and realized that the bottom part would come out if I took those nuts off along with a couple cap bolts at the other end, and voila, it slid out and gave me access to the sheave at the other end. That was about 10 minutes, maybe less. Just one of those slap-your-forehead and ask why you didn't see that solution before!
Jay422891422892

[Jerry Bruette]

Jay
It looks like the belts that were on the sander weren't the proper width and they were riding in the bottom of the groove. That's probably what caused the slipping. The bottom of the grooves on a sheave should never be shiny.

[John Gornall]

V- belt grips the pulley because the sides of the belt bulge out as the belt bends around the pulley. V- belts don't need to be tight. However, over time the sides of the belt wear, the belt bottoms, and the belts have to be replaced.

[John Gornall]

As a V- belt contacts the pulley and bends the sides bulge and grip the pulley. When the belt straightens it "lets go" of the pulley as it straightens. If the belt has too much tension it may have trouble "letting go" and there is vibration. This can often be eliminated by loosening the belt a little.

[Jerry Bruette]

V- belt grips the pulley because the sides of the belt bulge out as the belt bends around the pulley. V- belts don't need to be tight. However, over time the sides of the belt wear, the belt bottoms, and the belts have to be replaced.

If the belt is properly sized to a groove that's in good condition it would slip before it gets to the bottom of the groove from belt wear.

[Michael A. Tyree]

John is spot on r.e. v-belts, also very important to use a matched set on that application.