how to fit a drive belt?

Hiya Generally i find it is easyier to place the belt round the drum then take a peice of copper pipe or a vacum cleaner hose put it over the motor spindle , place the belt over the tube or copper pipe then work it down on to the motor spindle. this should give you the leveridge you need with out stretching the belt too much . Hope this helps.

Danduvan
November 2008

I have just completed one and it was not easy.

It's a very simple machine but access is difficult unless you completely dismantle it.

Once apart the new belt slips over the drum and then over the drive shaft of the motor. The belt is very tight so one modification I made was to drill out the holes where the motor braket is screwed to the base of the machine and replaced them screws with 75mm long m5 stainless steel machine screws and nuts. This makes it possible to release all (well most) of the tension from the drive belt. I cannot work out how else to do it as the belt seems so tight. (I probably missed something obvious.)

The hadest thing I found was reassembling the dryer. I took both the side panel off and found that nothing stayed square during reassembly. Also the panels as so thin and have realy sharp edges. Keeping the drum in it's front bearings (PTFE? strips) was also tricky and I had to ask my wife to hold the dryer together while I refitted the sides. On reflection I think taking one side off would have been sufficient.

I hope that helps. Not a full answer but I did spend about three hours just fiddling and looking for any easy way, before I finally got brave enough to take it all apart.

Anyway it's running now although I think it's a bit more noisy than it used to be!

Rick Bowers
November 2006