Removing the Motor: Craftsman King-Seeley 103.23141 Drill Press Restoration, Pt. 7

Back to the long-running drill press project.

Finally got a chance to remove the motor. I'm planning on replacing the bearings on the motor and on the quill, so I want to get them both apart, take the bearings out and then order new ones. I'm going to use this press, not just park it and let it collect dust.

I don't think I've posted a picture of the head during this project. Mainly because Toy Making Dad delivered it with the base and column as one unit and the head and the motor as another. All together the thing weighs over 200 lb, and while TMD is really a strong dude, he's not so strong that he can maneuver a vintage cast-iron drill press into the back of a Subaru station wagon solo.

Anyway, here's the head and motor assembly.

I did drag my bathroom scale down to The Dungeon to weight this part - about 70 lbs.

You can see how the motor mounts on the back on a sliding mount which adjusts the belt tension.

I'm reasonably sure that Sears sold these with a choice of motors; mine is a 1/2 hp one made by Packard Electric* and labelled "Sears Craftsman."

There are two bolts holding the motor mount onto the main body of the head. Just loosen them far enough so the mount will slide easily.

Note my Husky open end/ratcheting combination wrench. Husky, of course, is the house brand for The Despot. In years past I would have bought a US-made Craftsman wrench, but it's harder to find them (now only being sold at certain Ace Hardware stores and not mine), so Husky it is. Not as nice as Craftsman, but it does have a lifetime warranty and it's not awful

And I can't afford Snap-On for the most part.

With the mount bracket loosened, the drive belt comes right off. This obviously is how you'd adjust it or change pulleys to vary the speed.

You can see inside the head - not awful. There is surface dirt - sawdust - and some small rust spots, but it should clean up nicely.

And the motor, along with its mounting bracket, slides right out.

I decided to bite the bullet and see if the motor worked before I opened it up.

And yes, it fired right up. You can see the pulley spinning. It had a little bearing noise, but ran smoothly. Should be real nice after putting new bearings in.

Now I know that if it doesn't work after servicing it, it's my fault!

Four bolts hold the motor to the bottom half of the mount/bracket. The motor half is held on by two more bolts as we'll see in a minute.

That isn't rust, by the way, it's ancient caked-on sawdust.

Three of the bolts came right off, but one gave me a hard time and needed two wrenches to remove it.

With the mount off, we can see the motor start capacitor. I'm going to replace this with a new one.

More sawdust!

There's a thin steel plate that holds the capacitor down.

The capacitor itself is housed in a thin cardboard box. I took this shot just to show some of the wiring.

Unfortunately, modern start caps are cylindrical, so I need to come up with a different way to mount the new cap when I put it in. Stay tuned.

Here's the actual capacitor. You can see the value and also the date code. As far as I can decipher the code, the manufacturer was a company called "Electrical Windings," and the cap was made in 1953.

Electrical Windings made transformers, and other parts, and is out of business as far as I can tell.

Before I get much farther, I made a drawing of the wiring and connections to aid in reassembly.

The on/off switch is mounted to the motor half of the bracket and held on by two screws.

After removing the switch from the bracket, I can undo the wiring connections to the switch.

I don't know why, but I love these old-style brass screws holding these connectors on. A real throwback, but they're an extremely reliable and well-designed connector.

Now I desolder the connections to the capacitor.

If you've read some of my other posts, you know I prefer solder wick for this job.

I hate to toss the old cap, but it's going to be useless except as a display item, and I'm the only person who would appreciate it!

With some of the wiring disconnected, I can remove the remaining half of the mount.

I mentioned my Craftsman tools earlier - I've owned this particular ratchet since about 1985. (Note the finish wear on the reversing knob).

Used it on innumerable jobs, and it keeps on going. Really a great, quality tool.

Then I labelled the wiring so I could keep it straight. Note I also put those two mounting bolts back on the motor so as not to lose them!

Next time I'll open up the case and pull the bearings.

*Note on Packard Electric: by coincidence, I'm currently reading the definitive Packard history, "Packard: A History of the Motor Car and the Company" right now. The Packard brothers started in the hardware business in their hometown of Warren, Ohio, in the 1880s. Their business interests expanded into electical lighting and supplies soon after in 1890; the auto manufacturing part of the company was started in 1899. Packard Electric was split from the soon-to-be-famous auto company in 1905. Packard Electric was bought by General Motors in 1932 and became part of Delphi Automotive Systems (another GM company) in 1995. It survives today as part of Delphi, which itself split from GM in 1999.

The complete restoration saga

Part 1 - Beginning

Part 2 - Electrolysis to Remove Rust

Part 3 - Grinding to Remove Rust

Part 4 - Leveling Base Table

Part 5 - Recreating Model Number Label

Part 6 - Refinishing Base

Part 7 - Removing Motor

Part 8 - Motor Disassembly

Part 9 - Motor Bearing Replacement

Part 10 - Start Capacitor and Motor Reassembly

Part 11 - Removing Threaded Jacobs Chuck

Part 12 - Spindle Removal

Part 13 - Quill Disassembly

Part 14 - New Quill and Spindle Bearings

Part 15 - Engine Turned Aluminum Trim Proof of Concept

Part 16 - Engine Turned Aluminum Trim

Part 17 - Cleaning and Polishing Hardware

Part 18 - Jacobs 633C Drill Chuck Restoration

Part 19 - Cleaning and Polishing Column

Part 20 - Reassembly Begins

Part 21 - Restoration Completed