Abby Someone...

Sometimes a couple glasses of wine is bad medicine to take before tackling anything mechanical.  Sometimes it's just what you need to screw up the courage to do something you'd rather avoid.  Following up on my last post, I've entered the "Dr. Frankenstein" phase of restoring my Delta Rockwell 11-280 Radial Arm Drill Press, in that, I have begun switching parts over to it from the cannibalized 11-100.

11-280

11-100

As you can see in this side-by side comparison, the pinion shaft and feed handle are both heavily rusted on the 11-280, but near pristine on the 11-100.  It was an easy call deciding to switch the parts out, but I was reluctant to do so, as the pinion shaft was attached to the tensioned return spring. Memories of a couple of  unsuccessful attempts to repair lawn mower recoil springs came to mind and, as a result, I was very reluctant to take on this job.

My first thought was to immobilize the return spring against the locking lugs by clamping it down against the head. Unfortunately, as my clamp selection is rather limited, my idea turned out to be better in theory than in reality.  Upon loosening the two retaining nuts, the clamp slipped and the return spring popped off.  Luckily, the spring remained snugly wound inside the case.

After removing the original pinion shaft, I lubed the gear teeth of replacement shaft with some white lithium grease and reinserted it, mating it up with the gear teeth in the quill.  I then slipped the tongue of the return spring into the split bolt at the end of the pinion shaft, repositioned the case, refastened the retaining nuts and began the process of adjusting the tension on the return spring.

Here are three important things to note:

1. Tightening the return spring is done by a) loosening the retaining nuts just enough to b) pull the return spring case away from the locking lugs and then, c) rotating the spring case in a counter-clockwise direction. (In other words, don't waste a lot of time like I did attempting to wind it in a clockwise direction!  You don't need to be an Einstein to figure that one out, so I'll blame the wine.)
   
2. Don't over tighten the return spring or you'll run the risk of snapping it.  What you're looking for is a nice steady return of the quill into the drill head upon release and not a violent vertical ascent that will launch the spindle pulley into orbit.
   
3. In the event that you lose your grip on the return spring case while you're tightening it up, just let it go!  The only thing that you'll get by trying to stop it from unwinding under tension is some skinned up fingers.  Luckily this didn't happen to me...but as the other end of the spring protrudes from a slot in the case, the thing has plenty of potential.

Given that this was one of the steps in the reassembly process that had the most potential to go wrong, I'm hoping for smooth sailing ahead.  As the photos will attest, many of the parts on the 11-100 are in great shape and, as a result, will likely follow the pinion shaft onto the 11-280.

Now I just need to kick this one into high gear and get it done...