Re-installing table saw trunnion

[Bruce Thompson]

I made a riving knife for my old Delta Hybrid table saw. That work required removing the trunnion. Now I have to re-mount it and align to the miter slots of the table.

The trunnion mounts with four 1/2" bolts to the underside of the cast iron table, but the bolt holes are about 1/4" oversize to enable room for adjustment to align with the miter slots. I have no sleds that would have to be considered, and Ill have to install new zero clearance throat inserts anyway, so I thought that I might just slide the loosely-mounted trunnion front-to-back and side-to-side in order to approximately center the bolts in their oversized holes. Then I would snug down one bolt as a pivot around which to rotate the trunnion until my dial gauge shows it properly aligned, then tighten all of them.

Anyone have a better way to suggest?

[Cary Falk]

Buy some PALS. Best $20 spent on table mounted trunnions.

[Bruce Thompson]

Buy some PALS. Best $20 spent on table mounted trunnions.

Perhaps you meant well, but without explaining what PALS might be, not very helpful.

[Micah Puscheck]

5 second google search: Contractor Saw PALS - In-Line Industries - Woodworking Products (in-lineindustries.com)

Edit: to be clear, I know nothing about the product or application, just did a quick search and it seems to fit with the response.

[Cary Falk]

Sorry, I guess I should have included a link but I was in a hurry.

[Mark Mrsa]

I have a 1965 Craftsman table saw. From your description of your table saw with each trunnion having 2 bolts, a PALS kit would help you solve the initial challlenge of establishing the blade being parallel to the miter groove and all subsequent adjustments. The PALS kit provides bolt replacements, "L" brackets, and finer adjustment Allen set screws to set the position of each trunnion. You will also benefit from purchasing a dial indicator with a mount to slide in the miter groove to assess for parallelism (in-line or igaging are two sources).
One additional trick that may or may not help, once you have set each trunnion to the position you think is correct, don't loosen all 4 bolts when checking for parallelism, leave one tightened. You'll need to check and re-check for parallelism. Being out of parallel by more then 0.001 requires adjustment.
After you install the PALS kit and re-check for parallelism you then adjust the Allen set screw to bring the blade into a parallet position.
I hope this is of assistance. There are utube video for this.