Is the plate upside down?- Could it have been done to counteract the tension of the belt.

Or has it happened due to over use of belt tension? it seems rather excessive, but seems to be rather accurately done.

William

Can't imagine any reason why it would have originally been made that way. Belt wear, noise and possibly damage to bearings would be some of the effects of the pulleys being out of line.

More than likely the result of a fall.

Rob

If you google alignment of V belt pulleys you will see that it is important that the pulleys align as exactly as possible with each other in every plane!, We used long straight edges or even string, but even a small amount of misalignment causes noise, belt wear, overheating pulleys and pulley wear, and eventually bearing damage. That needs sorting!

Strange!

Meddings would not paint their motors a different colour to the drill, and it’s mounting is strange. The pulleys should align and not be so far out vertically which will cause wear and noise levels

I think this is a bigger problem than the bent arms, which can be corrected with “ washers” under the motor mounting bolts

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Although not unknown … it is rare for a machine manufacturer to custom-paint a motor

Have a look at Meddings’ current offerings : **LINK**

https://www.meddings.co.uk/drills-belt-drive/l1-mk-6-l2-mk4/

MichaelG.

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P.S. __ it seems clear that this motor is a replacement, and the job has been badly done

Your comment about pulley alignment is much more significant than the colour

To say that the pulleys are out of line, would be an understatement !

How could you use the machine like that ? That looks like a botched up job.

I would replace the bars if they are bent but also reposition the motor so that the pulleys line up correctly.

Short answer is No, it does not look right.

Woodlikesbikes – your first two photos are a no-brainer, that motor pulley is way out in just about every way possible.

Needs a major re-alignment, starting with a strip down of all the motor holding and tensioning parts and closely examining them, looking for un-natural bends or other damage and asking yourself if it was all assembled correctly before strip down.

And I would also bet that the motor is a replacement for the original too, which would lead me to suspect the machine has been dropped or suffered impact damage by some means, hence your problem.

It may be camera angle but in the first photo the steel rule also looks as if it might not be sitting level on the top of the quill pulley and rising up a tad towards the motor pulley.

It would be worthwhile checking the pulleys are turning round true, unlikely the shafts are bent but not unknown, but the pulleys themselves may be not sitting on the shafts squarely, worth a check.

As has been stated above, the pulleys must align perfectly both vertically and horizontally – thats your target! The quill pulley will be your reference providing it is, or when it is, true so all the adjustment comes at the motor end. You may find that you need to provide support under the motor while you are doing this and doing everything up, the motor gets heavily the longer you try and hold it up with one hand while tightening with the other, safer too.

Good luck – not at all difficult, just needs close attention to detail!!

Chris

Judged by experience with a new RF 25, the belt will have a short life. Mine shredded within 6 months. Having aligned the motor, the replacement is still O K some 20 years on.

If the motor mountings on the plate are out of line, I would agree that the likely cause is that machine has been dropped at some time.

Whether you are prepared to risk the cast plate mby bending the bars back into line, or prefer to modifiy the mounting pads on the plate to align the motor is up to you.

Could you turn up some washers, to go between motor feet and the plate to realign it, and use longer bolts, and a least invasive recovery?

Howard

You can usually slide the pulley up the motor shaft a bit too if you need that last bit of belt alignment. She must have done some work to wear out three motors. I have an ancient Australian-made Waldown drill press that is similar vintage and style and is my "go to" for drilling small precision holes, despite its size. Just a nice tight fitting quill and spindle make it a better quality machine than my much newer Chinese job that is now relegated to "roughing" after I found out it was drilling about 5 degrees off square due to manufacturing error. Well worth a bit of fettling to keep the old ones running when they do such a superior job.