Clutch gremlin

[Oldsmagnet]

OK, this one's already fixed, I just wanted to share, since it's not a fairly common problem (I ~hope~) Friday, while bowling, I watch lane 10 sitting on 90 for like 10 minutes, and I know the pinchaser's back there. So I finally go check on him, and he's just watching and scratching his head. Motors running, belt's on and going, clutch is triggered, gearbox not moving. I shake the clutch lever a few times, and she jiggles into motion, and never gives so much as a sputter for the rest of the night. Well, I guess it did it again a couple times over the weekend, so I set out tonight to fix the clutch on it. (clean, replace, bandaid, whatever needed [img]/content/btubb/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif[/img] First thing I do (quick fix) is the chatterstoppers... Don't know if they're really anything more than mystery/snake oil, but it's ~quick~... Well, it didn't do a thing. Notice the clutch disc won't slide on the shaft smoothly. OK, won't move without a couple gentle taps with the hammer. (Tried a few times, hoping to free it up enough to run on it's own... And ~yes~ I do mean gentle...) To no avail. So, time to pull the clutch. No biggie, just didn't want to get ~that~ involved tonight. Well, first thing's first, gotta get these belts out of the way. Elevator belt, zip, bye... Motor/gearbox belt... Zi.... z.... z...zi... crap! This thing's tight! Noticing the fresh/bright righting on it... Damn. I ~know~ nobody was here cleaning things...

Well, for some reason, we've got like 4 different length belts for the gearboxes across the house (all pulley's the same, but for whatever reason....) I'm slowly making 'em uniform as the old ones finally break. Apparantly 10 let go sometime over the week, and ~somebody~ put on a belt that musta been about 6 inches too short [img]/content/btubb/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/shocked.gif[/img] Loosened up the motor, (slid like an inch!) and suddenly the clutch is working just fine now.

Now I've just got to try to shake this mental image of a monkey holding a 6' prybar trying to get that belt ~on~ there!!!!! Yikes! [img]/content/btubb/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/mad.gif[/img] Just glad the clutch started binding and caused a noticable problem ~before~ it chewed the crap out of that shaft. Yeah, ~that~ would have made my day...

[Adam_Davis]

Re: Clutch gremlin

I had a simalar problem once. We have Jet Backs with the old style motor mount. The roll pin had broken in this one, so I had replaced it with a bolt. Seems someone had used the moter for a step and had forced it down. Woth the bolt in there, it diddnt spring back up, so the belt got really tight.
This one wouldn't trigger at all it was so tight.