Unisaw 34-476 gross arbor alignment issue

[Brandon Davis]

Q1: a. Can anyone tell me what the "rough distance" of the RH side of the blade to the miter slot should be? b. Should the blade be [roughly] centered between the two miter slots?

I'm not talking about the various "fine adjustments" you do with alignment gauges to dial a saw in. I'm only talking about when you've had a tabletop off for some reason or other (like disassembling your saw to replace arbor bearings for example), and you're bolting it all back together.

Q2: a. Next. Can-or-should the arbor be adjusted side-to-side on the motor bracket shaft to center the blade (and arbor) to the splitter/blade guard center? b. How?

Q3: a. Can the arbor gear be "off-center" from the worm gear on the height adjustment shaft? b. Would that "off-center" shaft cause the arbor gears not to mesh well with the shaft worm gear? c. Could that cause a "clunk" sound? (Not the clunk sound on motor start up. A clunk sound caused by adjusting the height of the saw.)

Yeah. My Uni' is seriously screwed up right now, and I'm wondering how I should be going about fixing this ...including taking the whole bloody thing down to the nubbins to see what's really going on with it.

Details follow. (You do not have to read the following, unless the questions make no sense at all lol.)

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Backstory:
I have a 1975-76 Unisaw No 34-476.

It was purchased as a minor "project" saw (it ran, and everything was there except the fence) via a C/L 2nd party sale ...the seller bought it the weekend previous at an estate sale to flip it, and I got it from him at an attractive price.

I never used it for the several years after buying it, before moving from California to Washington three years ago.

And I couldn't get to it after moving until this past summer; for one, I didn't even have an arbor nut for it lol.

I've only this past weekend (Sat/Sun Sep 7-8, 14) started dialing it in and such, in prep for my first "real" woodworking projects since moving to Washington.

And, well ...there's something weird going on.

Alignment
First. I measured the arbor run-out (if I'm doing it right) in the +/-.003 neighborhood. So that seemed fine.

Next, I aligned the blade to the miter slots, and measured the blade (again, "if I'm doing it right") in the +/-.0005 neighborhood ...and yeah, I realize there's a discrepancy there, which is why the "if I'm doing it right" disclaimer lol.

Next I aligned and checked the [Ridgid] fence that I picked up last spring on C/L (which is an aluminum extrusion affair). It is off about +/.010 midway along its length in an arc. I was able to get +/-0.000 on both ends, but from about mid-way to "almost the end" it was off about +/- .011 in a gentle arc (beats me: I figure it's usable until I decide what fence I'm going to settle on ...I have an Incra, but it's really too long for my garage storage arrangement, so I'm thinking about a Vega, or a Beisy if I can find one on C/L at a good price).

I finished with the above measurements and adjustments Saturday evening, made a few test rips, realized my scale was off a 1/16" or so and there was some minor burn in spots (probably my technique, and not using a proper rip blade), cleaned it all up, and called it a night.

Problems
Sunday though, the problems began.

First I adjusted the scale to the blade. No problem there (the Ridgid fence adjusts easily at least).

No set screw or key
But after lowering the blade, going to lunch, and futzing with some other weekend chores ...I came back and couldn't raise the blade. The wheel would just spin. Moment of panic (now what did I do?) and that's when I noticed there wasn't a set screw keeping the wheel locked to the keyway. Relief. Saw not broken.

A while after procuring a set screw, I found out it also needed a key. Grr. (Still don't have that. Suggestions?)

Height adjustment "quit" working
Inserting the set screw though ...revealed a second, worse problem. The bloody height adjustment was frozen. I couldn't adjust the height up or down. That had not happened previously ...it had been working just fine.

Cleaning, and fix
But I could move the shaft a "tad" after carefully rocking the side wheel and changing the blade angle ...so after making sure there was nothing blocking truly blocking it (like something fallen into the gear or such), I started liberally applying WD40 (made a big mess), and carefully playing with that "tad bit" of available movement. Well, after several minutes, the whole affair kind of "lurched" (my technical term), and the problem went away as if it hadn't happened. (No, nothing fell to the floor lol.)

I was ...concerned. To put it mildly.

The Clunk
And there was a definite "clunk" in certain parts of the movement of the wheel that I hadn't noticed before.

Arbor L-to-R movement
After much more close examination, cleaning of the teeth on both worm gears and arbor gears (someone had applied grease at some point, which I figured I should remove) with brush and even more WD40 (bigger mess), I found that the arbor seemed to shift ever so slightly depending upon movement and orientation as I turned the adjustment wheels.

Clamp bolt loose
That's when I noticed that the clamp bolt on the arbor was loose.

Aargh.

Now all my previous measurements are suspect!

So I tightened that bolt ...and there was still a clunk. Though not nearly as bad.

Arbor gear not meshing properly
But - sans blade - I ran it many times through the range of height and tilt adjustments and saw that in some orientations (45° tilt, going from full height to low), and lowering at a faster speed, the arbor gear would go a bit slack against the pinion gear. And as it moved from "fore to aft", that tiny movement was causing the clunk as the slack caught up.

...if I turned slowly, the clunk didn't happen.

Next I started and stopped, and just let the motor run for several minutes ...and that seemed okay.

So I decided what the heck, I'll at least put a rip blade on.

But ...I couldn't put the zero insert on.

And the blade was nowhere near close to center of the splitter (I picked up a Delta splitter years back, too). Crap.

Help!
I need some help. I have no idea what's going on, and my searches have not proven fruitful.

TIA.

[Matt Day]

If I get a half hour or so, I'll read through that post. Then I probably won't be of any help. ;-). Good luck!

[Brandon Davis]

If I get a half hour or so, I'll read through that post. Then I probably won't be of any help. ;-). Good luck!

LOL. Sorry. Methinks I o'ermuch like to hear the sound of my own typing.

I edited the original to make clear the actual questions. The "back story" part of the post is eminently ignorable.