Excalibur Rebuild

[OCtoolguy]

3 hours ago, Rolf said:

Kevin, I rebuilt my friends EX on Saturday.   As you said it is not that big of a deal if you have few tools small metric sockets and a mixture of inch and metric allen wrenches.

Just a heads up!

I have already posted some of this on the SSWWC forum.

A good friends EX-21, an old original green one, broke. She sent me a picture of the broken adjuster rod (since been eliminated in the newer designs) She ordered the parts from Ray and I told her I would install them. While she was at it she also ordered the Pegas clamps from Denny @Artcrafters.

This was my first tear down of an Excalibur. Since I keep hearing about dry bearings on these forums I decided to take every joint apart and re-lube the needle bearings. Good thing I did as they were ALL dry. The new linkage included the pitman arm and I immediately realized that it was just flopping around. The old one was almost seized. I took it apart and found the pin was rusty as were the needle bearings. Even if it had dried up grease they would not have been rusty.  This bearing has never seen grease.! When it was all re-assembled I adjusted the motor for the front back motion and re-aligned the table so that it was at 90 deg. when the alignment pin was pushed in. The saw runs great but I didn’t get to run it before it broke so I have no comparison.  She has a second saw of the same vintage and I will be rebuilding it also.. 

I am going to order a new needle bearing for the old pitman arm so that she has a spare.

Rolf, was this machine a Chinese or Taiwan or ??? Both of my saws are green. One is Canadian and the other is Taiwan. I took the Taiwan saw apart and greased all the joints but I haven't gone all the way to the rear yet. I guess I had better have a look. So far, no vibration but I don't want any either.

 

[kmmcrafts]

4 hours ago, Rolf said:

Kevin, I rebuilt my friends EX on Saturday.   As you said it is not that big of a deal if you have few tools small metric sockets and a mixture of inch and metric allen wrenches.

Just a heads up!

I have already posted some of this on the SSWWC forum.

A good friends EX-21, an old original green one, broke. She sent me a picture of the broken adjuster rod (since been eliminated in the newer designs) She ordered the parts from Ray and I told her I would install them. While she was at it she also ordered the Pegas clamps from Denny @Artcrafters.

This was my first tear down of an Excalibur. Since I keep hearing about dry bearings on these forums I decided to take every joint apart and re-lube the needle bearings. Good thing I did as they were ALL dry. The new linkage included the pitman arm and I immediately realized that it was just flopping around. The old one was almost seized. I took it apart and found the pin was rusty as were the needle bearings. Even if it had dried up grease they would not have been rusty.  This bearing has never seen grease.! When it was all re-assembled I adjusted the motor for the front back motion and re-aligned the table so that it was at 90 deg. when the alignment pin was pushed in. The saw runs great but I didn’t get to run it before it broke so I have no comparison.  She has a second saw of the same vintage and I will be rebuilding it also.. 

I am going to order a new needle bearing for the old pitman arm so that she has a spare.

 

 

Rolf, I pulled mine apart a year ago and had the same thing.. rusty bearings.. actually only a couple of them was real bad.. and yes.. almost seized up.. I think I posted about it last year around October.. The sleeves was really kind of beat up too.. I managed to get them cleaned up and working fairly smooth again but sadly due to the wear etc I only got about 8 months or bout 100 more hours .. before it got bad again... I could find the bearings.. but i couldn't find a source for the sleeves.. I took it to a local bearing shop that is known to be a good place to source them... But mine was a oddball size and he said they must have made them in house at the manufacture.. I'm thinking it was just poor China tolerances.. So this is why I just bought the whole assembly from Ray and basically made a new saw out of it.. Everything was replaced other than the frame and electronics etc.. LOL.. 

In my checking around and investigating.. It seems the whole assembly from Ray is much cheaper than just buying new bearings.. not counting the sleeves... That whole back part of the saw is only $114 from Ray.. Now the front rocker assemblies are a bit pricey since there is two of them.. The good thing about just doing the bearings and sleeves is that most times it's only 1-3 of those that get most of the wear.. and then you can save some money by just buying bearings and sleeves.. Now that I have a complete different innards I'll go that route next time... provided the sleeves are not some oddball thing like my China parts were, LOL  

[Rolf]

Kevin, as you say the bearings are easy to find. but the sleeves are another issue. The diameter of the sleeve is the easy part but the length is critical. I will check the hardness of the old one and see if I can make a new on from some high quality drill rod. I do have a small metal lathe.  I will be rebuilding her second saw at the end of the summer. 

[kmmcrafts]

6 hours ago, Rolf said:

Kevin, as you say the bearings are easy to find. but the sleeves are another issue. The diameter of the sleeve is the easy part but the length is critical. I will check the hardness of the old one and see if I can make a new on from some high quality drill rod. I do have a small metal lathe.  I will be rebuilding her second saw at the end of the summer. 

I believe some of the sleeves are the same as what comes with the DeWalt.. but I'm not 100% sure on that.. Pretty sure the ones at the front rocker arms etc are the same as DW788's but those at the back of the saw don't seem to be..

Most of what I've seen on videos for the DW788's was the bearings at the back of the saw.. however my saw had the originals in it at the back of the saw but I've had to rebuild the front rocker assemblies on it a coupe times.. and from what I could tell it was because that fine sawdust piled up on top of the lower assembly... probably absorbing up any moisture the grease had.. They was always dried out.. I got to where I would take the lower assembly apart for a cleaning and fresh grease every year..  Thinking this might be same possible issue with the EX type saw too.  

[GrampaJim]

On 7/19/2020 at 8:56 AM, kmmcrafts said:

Well I got it back up and running. Now I need to dial everything in and it should be ready to make sawdust. 
 

The job wasn’t too bad, I took it farther apart than I really needed to but I was also making other repairs than just the bearing assembly. 
 

I bought the whole assembly from Seyco. The pictures of the parts below. I’ll try to upload the instructions that came with the assembly since it’s just a few pages. I found them not very good because they was photo copy pages and the pictures was very poor. Since I can’t read words and the pictures was bad they might as well not sent them.

Kev, You are 100% correct, the instructions are crap.  I just finished the rebuild of my old EX-16.  I ordered the whole assembly from Seyco.  I did a lot of hear scratching at some parts of the process - like what are they talking about?? LOL  But it was still easier than the rebuild of my Dewalt.

[kmmcrafts]

56 minutes ago, GrampaJim said:

Kev, You are 100% correct, the instructions are crap.  I just finished the rebuild of my old EX-16.  I ordered the whole assembly from Seyco.  I did a lot of hear scratching at some parts of the process - like what are they talking about?? LOL  But it was still easier than the rebuild of my Dewalt.

Buying the whole assembly makes it much quicker since you don't have to fool with pressing bearings etc.. I kind of think the instructions were the hardest part of the job and probably would have been easier to just wing it without them, LOL They make it more confusing that good, 

Glad to hear you got through it alright, and should be good to go for several years now..

[GrampaJim]

Getting the "gearbox" out looked impossible from the exploded view in the manual.  I kept looking for a way to take the side frame off - nope, not going to happen. 

The original owner was a middle-school where the kids just made curved pieces for the other projects.  Always with a 7 or 9 blade and never releasing the tension lever except to change a broken blade.  I thought it would be OK, but started hearing more noise and then I noticed a lot of metal dust back by the gearbox.  All should be good now.  Between what I paid for the saw, adding Pegas blade chucks, and now this, I think the saw will out last me (I will turn 75 this spring).

[Bab]

Help!  I am in the process of taking apart my Excalibur 21" to replace a broken drive link assembly.  I have been following the pictures that have been posted on this forum and I'm at a road block.  I am at the stage where I need to remove a set screw from the back knob before I can remove the knob.  I see no set screw and no place where a set screw may be inserted into this knob.  This is an Excalibur21" that I bought through Amazon in 2021.  It was made in China.  Any help with getting this back knob off of this scrollsaw would be helpful.  Thank you!

[OCtoolguy]

17 minutes ago, Bab said:

Help!  I am in the process of taking apart my Excalibur 21" to replace a broken drive link assembly.  I have been following the pictures that have been posted on this forum and I'm at a road block.  I am at the stage where I need to remove a set screw from the back knob before I can remove the knob.  I see no set screw and no place where a set screw may be inserted into this knob.  This is an Excalibur21" that I bought through Amazon in 2021.  It was made in China.  Any help with getting this back knob off of this scrollsaw would be helpful.  Thank you!

I'm not familiar with the Chinese Ex's but could it be a "push on " knob? Maybe just needs to be pulled off. @kmmcrafts is the guy to ask. He has one and has been through it completely.

 

[kmmcrafts]

I don't remember exactly how this comes apart BUT, there is a plastic cap on top of the knob that you'll need to pry off then there is a nut to remove there. My cap broke and fell off so here is a good picture of what I'm taking about. The whole threaded rod might try to spin and you might not want that as that might loosen in the threaded block and could give you fits later down the road. Unless you're planning to unthread it anyway and add some blue loc-tite which is something I recommend if you're mechanical enough to do that. Anyway, there is a jam nut below the knob too but it's a tough to squeeze a wrench in there to get onto it.. That's about the only way to hold it if the whole rod tries to spin on you. If you have a impact gun then you might be able to loosen that nut without holding the jam nut..

Anyway, good luck and let me know if you have any other questions. 

Edited October 6, 2022 by kmmcrafts

[Bab]

Thank you!  I have been scratching my head all afternoon looking for that set screw that apparently has to be removed in order to unscrew the back knob.  I see no set screw and no signs of a set screw anywhere on the knob but the instructions say to remove the mystery set screw which will allow removable of the knob.  I think the pics and instructions were posted by GrampaJim.  The removal of the set screw is #4 in the posted directions. 

[Bab]

I have to replace the drive link assembly.  It was broken in two!

 

Edited October 6, 2022 by Bab

[OCtoolguy]

3 hours ago, Bab said:

I have to replace the drive link assembly.  It was broken in two!

 

Be aware that that nut shown is a left hand thread.

 

[D35TROY]

I know this is an old post, but...

I found a 2011 EX16 (green and serial ends in 11).  The seller is asking $300.  He settled on $250.

Question...(I have not seen it yet.  Will in a day or two)  Other than the top clamp stripping out, what are the main issues I need to look for?  Ways I can check when looking at it?  Obviously it depends on how much he used it.  It looks clean in the pictures and he states he's getting rid of it to make room in shop.  He states he has another one.

Any links to replacement parts-clamp, linkage, bearings, etc? Stuff that might be worn or worn out.  Thanks a ton in advance.

[kmmcrafts]

1 hour ago, D35TROY said:

I know this is an old post, but...

I found a 2011 EX16 (green and serial ends in 11).  The seller is asking $300.  He settled on $250.

Question...(I have not seen it yet.  Will in a day or two)  Other than the top clamp stripping out, what are the main issues I need to look for?  Ways I can check when looking at it?  Obviously it depends on how much he used it.  It looks clean in the pictures and he states he's getting rid of it to make room in shop.  He states he has another one.

Any links to replacement parts-clamp, linkage, bearings, etc? Stuff that might be worn or worn out.  Thanks a ton in advance.

This is where I would buy any needed parts... and you can call them for any service advice or any questions about repairs you might have.. Ray and Mike are a awesome resources with their many years of experience with sales and service of the Excalibur.. 

https://www.seyco.com/partspage/ 

[OCtoolguy]

2 hours ago, D35TROY said:

I know this is an old post, but...

I found a 2011 EX16 (green and serial ends in 11).  The seller is asking $300.  He settled on $250.

Question...(I have not seen it yet.  Will in a day or two)  Other than the top clamp stripping out, what are the main issues I need to look for?  Ways I can check when looking at it?  Obviously it depends on how much he used it.  It looks clean in the pictures and he states he's getting rid of it to make room in shop.  He states he has another one.

Any links to replacement parts-clamp, linkage, bearings, etc? Stuff that might be worn or worn out.  Thanks a ton in advance.

My advice is to just take a couple of blades with you and some scrap wood that is similar to what you will be using. Give it a try. Listen for any odd noises and give the mechanism a jiggle in different spots. Those saws are pretty tough and anything that might be bad is easily fixable. As long as the motor runs and the variable controller is working as it should, you will be good to go.