Moving along with the restoration

A few notes on changes I've decided on.

1. I am keeping the yoke gloss black but have to decided to paint the motor metallic silver, since the blade guard that attaches to it will be metallic silver. I have also decided to use gloss black ball knobs and pulls. I purchased these from J.W. Winco. Here is the link to the page for these ball knobs. J.W. Winco Gloss black ball knobs
2. Since there will be no red in this rebuild, I will be painting the embossed DeWalt on the end cap in black instead of red.

I began the next step by dis-assembling the yoke and motor. The motor comes off the yoke on one side with one bolt which has an Allen head, on the other side there are three Allen head bolts holding it in place. I'm not certain yet as I haven't done the research, but maybe the two small ones on the side are for alignment? Any way there is a large bolt in the center and two smaller ones on the side. Soak them with PB Blaster over night and they should come out the next day relatively easily.

I removed the alignment set screws that hold the bushing in place on the open end of the yoke. I took the bushing out, measured those set screws and then put them back in to protect the threads during sandblasting and painting. I ordered new set screws, there are two that are #10 x 24 x 1 1/4" and one is #10 x 24 x 1". I ordered these on eBay from the lightingstainless store.

yoke replacement set screws 

Use this guy, he ships quickly and has quality hardware. I get nothing for that, I only recommend sources when they provide products that perform for me.

The motor end bells come off by loosening the four nuts holding the long retaining bolts. Once the bolts are out the end bells are very tough to get off. This is where you have to be very careful. If you break the motor fan, you have to either find a replacement fan from an old machine as new replacements aren't available (unless Wolfe machinery comes back in business) or buy an old replacement motor on eBay. The Delphi DeWalt Radial Arm Saw forum is also a wonderful resource to find parts.

The bearings on the motor shafts need serious PB Blasting and WD-40 before you can even think of getting them to release. Usually, from my reading the forums and rebuild articles, the wiring end bell comes off easily, this wasn't the case for me. You need an arbor press of gear puller to do this properly although if your mechanically inclined you can fabricate something to use in a vise so opening the vise acts as a puller. Since I have three more machines to do and possibly more after, I will design and build something for that purpose. I'll post on that when it happens, in the meantime take great care trying to get the bearings off the motor shafts if you intend on replacing them. If you don't, THEN DON'T TAKE APART THE MOTOR!

The motor on this machine ran but sounded a bit off which is why I'm taking it apart to rebuild it.

Once I took the motor nameplate off, the electrics inside the housing looked to be in great shape. Not much to do there.

I tried cleaning the nameplate as it was very blotchy. It din't come out write, an as they are not embossed, the usual methods don't work. I went on practicalmachinist.com to see if there were any other techniques to try but I found a reference to a gentlemen who can make perfect replica plates.
I ordered one for each motor I have. Once I receive them, I will post side by sides and give you his contact info should they be of the quality consistent with this rebuild. The motor nameplate is also shown below.

Since I broke the motor fan, it was then easy to use the gear puller to get the bearing and plate off.

After thoroughly cleaning the blade end bearing, it spun very freely so I am not going to replace it.

I finished painting most of the parts except for the arm. Each part received one coat of primer and two coats of paint. Once I give everything 2-3 days to fully dry, I will give them all one coat of gloss lacquer.

Here are the all parts but the arm painted (except for the motor housing which is only primed)

You may have noticed that the end bell of the motor still has the motor arbor in it. I tried for 3 days to get that bearing to come loose. I could not. After receiving many suggestions on what to do, including drilling a center hole, tapping it and screwing a bolt through it to push the arbor and bearing out, I decided that since I PB Blasted and WD-40'd it so much and it was spinning beautifully that I would leave it alone.

That meant some serious work covering the entire arbor assembly so I could sandblast the end bell and paint it. Here is what it looked like prior to sandblasting.

And here it is all primed and ready to be painted, with the other end bell and drive plate next to it.

I had another bearing problem in the roller head. One of the bearing bolts would not come out and I noticed it was very slightly bent by the threads. I had to heat the housing and cool the bearing and then pound it out with a hammer and another bolt. Of course that destroyed the threads on that bearing bolt, but I easily found replacements on the Delphi forum mentioned above.

The only thing left to do now is work on the arm. I have to remove the crank and top cap, take out the elevating screw so I can thoroughly clean it and the column, sandblast and paint the arm and top cap.

That's it for now, look for my next post in a few days.