Replacing blade chucks on new Excalibur 21" made in China

[Bab]

I bought an Excalibur 21  thru Amazon 18 months ago.  I ordered Pegas blade chucks to replace the Excalibur chucks.  The upper blade chuck was easily removed and I have already replaced it with the Pegas chuck.  The bottom blade chuck does not come off.  The sleeve that is supposed to slide out will not, no matter what I do (WD-40, Pushing in with small tool, etc.) Does anyone know if the bottom blade chuck of the more recent China made Excaliburs is permanently (press fit) attached onto the bottom rocker arm?  The sleeve does not slide out and so I am stuck with the Excalibur bottom blade chuck.  General International sent me a new replacement Excalibur since I was having so many issues with the one I originally bought through Amazon.  So I tried to remove the bottom chuck from the replacement saw and I am having the same issue....sleeves do not come out and so the chuck is permanently affixed to the bottom rocker arm.  It makes no sense that the upper chuck can be removed and replaced but the lower chuck cannot.  Has anyone experienced this same issue?  Thanks for any input.

[OCtoolguy]

@kmmcraftsrebuilt his Ex and added the Pegas chucks but I think when he did it he put actual Excalibur parts back in his saw instead of the Chinese parts. He might be able to shine some light on your dilemma though. Let's see if he chimes in soon.

 

[Bab]

Thanks for  your reply.  I did discuss my dilemma with Kevin at kmmcrafts.  He has been very helpful with my Excalibur21 rebuild.  I replaced a broken drive link assembly and I was planning on replacing the upper and lower rocker assemblies with actual Excalibur parts from Seyco but Kevin had a terrible time replacing the rocker assemblies because the Chinese rocker assemblies are different and the Excalibur parts did not fit the Chinese scrollsaw.  So I was going to just simply replace the blade chucks.  This is when I ran into the problem that the lower blade chuck on my China built Excalibur will not come off.  Kevin did replace his older China built Excalibur chucks with Pegas chucks.  He suggested that possibly the newer China built Excaliburs now come with permanently attached lower blade chucks.  This is the only explanation that sounds plausible to me.  So I am wondering if there is anyone out there with a newer China built Excalibur that has been able to replace the lower blade chucks and if so, how did they do it?  Its a mystery.  Thanks for your comment though.

[kmmcrafts]

Barb, since you was able to change the upper chuck without issue, I think what you have going on is ( I've had this issue with a DeWalt ) the very fine sawdust lands on those lower arm bearings and the fine dust soaks up the moisture of the grease and expands.. Many times the bearing is toast as is the sleeve in this scenario anyway. You might look to see what Seyco.com gets for those rocker assemblies and also might check what the ones for the DeWalt cost as well.. I think they are the same for both saws.. but not 100%.. I will say if you buy them from Seyco you get the upper and lower chucks with them.. and the square shaped mounting blocks that fit into the arm tubes.. however those blocks will not fit the China made saw so you'll have to take the assemblies apart and swap the parts to your original blocks.  

[Bab]

Good plan!  Thanks Kevin!