Originally Posted by
G_P
Some tweaker stole the diamond blades out of a bunch of boxes
He probably had some stupid idea about the diamonds.....
With grinders, its really important to make sure the 4 or 5 bolts holding the gear head don't come loose.
Theres a low margin of clearance & when the bolts loosen, even a tiny bit, the gap between the teeth increase & the natural progression is that the gears will pull away from each other & wear the teeth down or the armature gear will ride up over the other flat gear & wear/break the teeth off it.
That happened to mine (9 inch cheapo brand) & I left it longer than I should have (It went WIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!) & I found by turning the disc by hand & starting it at the same time it would work for a while, enough to finish the job.
Later I found out that as soon as I noticed the loose screws or the wizzzzz, I should have stopped & tightened up the bolts, they are like 4mm thread...screws more like. Its hard to see a 1mm loosen, with the spring washer as well.
When I pulled it apart I found all the teeth had worn over, increasing the clearance & wearing the edge of teeth off.
No actual teeth broken off, just worn over. The armature teeth were good - weird, I'd thought they would be the first to go, ruining the grinder.
I went thru with a sharp knife & a file & chipped the worn over tooth part off & then filed the chipped edge smoother & cleared out the dirty grease. It had white/clear grease - nice idea, visual indication of metal wear.
It works well now, really noisy though.
Things I'd do now when I get a new grinder.
Remove the posidrive screws & replace with hex head bolts (side access without removing the guard), & fit locking tabs to stop the bolts loosening.
Make sure it had a 'overcentre clamping' guard (makes a huge difference)
Cut lines in the guard so when the disc wears down to 4 1/2 inch I can remove the worn disc & use it in my 4 1/2 grinder.
Make a wall hanging fixture so I can store the grinder on the wall, with the head end up, so the warm grease will drip back down onto the gears to lubricate them next time I use the grinder.
Its a 2 pin 240V cord, replace the cord with 3 pin so it grips in the wall socket better.
A 'end on' plug cord at the correct length so if I have too I can hold the grinder & stamp on the cord so it pulls itself out of the wall socket (or power cord)
Bookmarks