Band wheel alignment question

[Dana Stanley]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but the band wheels on the saw mill, just like the wheels on a shop band saw should be parallel and co plainer?

I am having an issue where my blade is popping off again, I am getting a new drive belt today as the old one is worn, and the tech at woodland mills, had me check the alignment from drive wheel to clutch pulley, which is off. He wants me to re adjust the motor to align it, but when I checked the two band wheels the drive wheel is toe in, and I think it should be on the same plane as the follower wheel. if it were this would make a major improvement on the alignment with the clutch wheel.

Woodland mills doesn't like you to adjust the drive wheel for some reason that is taboo!  

He wants me to get it close walk the belt off the wheel, make the final adjustment and alignment then walk the belt back on the wheel, which seems mickey mouse to me. The newer models have an adjustable idler wheel, so you do not affect alignment when you re tension the belt.

 

 

[Crusarius]

#1, if your wheel is that far off I would check the bearings!

#2, that looks like a 3/8" gap. that would severely limit your belt life. I think I would be aligning the band wheels. Kind of surprising that your blades would stay on at all with that much misalignment. 

[Dana Stanley]

It was actully a solid 1/8" . I put the new belt on and aligned the wheels, which the Tech swears I don't need to do! I still cant get the Clutch pulley to align with the drive wheel. it is better, and I am getting a new bearing for that as that is a little sloppy, which will make a marginal improvement, but I think the motor is out of alignment with the bracket the wheels are on, so I can not twist it enough to get the pulley perfectly aligned! I will post pics!

[Dana Stanley]

So here you can see the motor is crooked by a little more than an 1/8",(hard to tell by the pic, but it is) and it is twisted as far as I can go to get it right. Even with all the mount bolts loose tension off it won't align. You can see I was easily able to make the wheels parallel! I think I need to slightly grind out one of the mounting slots, on the motor mount plate to get it to align. Only two of the holes on the motor are elongated for adjustment. I can test my theory by removing the one bolt and trying to adjust it!