EXakt Saw EC310N - Gear fault repair - put it back together

Righty. The new parts arrived today. The gear was £7.99 and the brushes were £3.99. I should say at this point that having since checked the existing brushes, I decided to leave them in a bit longer (to get my money's worth and all that). So, this post is just about replacing the brass gear.

First, some pictures of the new bits:

Now I'm going to swap the brass gear. The gear assembly is held together with a circlip. Remove the circlip, then remove the bearing and finally the gear itself:

I did contemplate simply putting everything back together at this point but, really, there was a lot of swarf in the gearbox grease. So I decided to clean things up a bit. This was quite messy and I didn't take any pictures. What I'm left with in the next picture is a cleaned up gearbox with everything re-assembled:

Looking good. Here's the other part of the drive gear. I've also cleaned that side of things out. I added some fresh grease (in the end and after a great deal of deliberation, I added a bit more than what can be seen in the picture):

So now its time to re-assemble the device. Before attaching the gearbox plate, replace the spring and end-stop assembly in its channel. There's a small metal bush which goes in there as well. I've highlighted it in the picture:

At this point the two halves of the device can be put back together. However, I found that the easiest way of getting that rogue nut to stay in place was to attach it to the depth-stop screw first. Then put the two halves back together and screw them up. Finally remove the depth-stop screw, replace the collar and rubber seal, and re-fit the depth-stop screw:

That's it. All being well, you'll now have a fully working Exakt saw. I do :)

More soon, no doubt...


D

EXakt Saw EC310N - Gear fault repair - take it apart

I've got one of these Exact Saw things. I've had it about six years and mainly used it for cutting wall tiles. I've done plenty but even so, the carbide blade is still as good as new. The important thing, it seems, is to make sure that the dust extraction system is always used. Failure to do so means the gearbox on it fills with crap and eventually something goes wrong. In my case, it was the (deliberately soft?) brass bevel gear that stripped. This was something I discovered on taking it apart the other night. Before starting, I did a bit of googling for a "How To Take An Exakt Saw Apart" tutorial but couldn't find anything. So, I took a step into the unknown and, lucky for you, I took some pictures of what I did. I've already ordered the new parts and once they arrive, I'll cover the replacement and rebuild in another post.

Here is my saw:

Remove the guard using the tool that came with the saw. If, like me, you have long since misplaced that tool, a T25 star bit will work instead:

Remove the cutting disc. Again, a T25 star bit and a pair of pliers will do:

The body is held together with five screws. Make a mental note of where the long screw comes from. The fifth screw is hidden under the guard lever mechanism (arrowed), which lifts away once the long screw is removed:

Next, cut through the label on the underside. This will void your warranty (if you still have one):

Unscrew and remove the depth-gauge knob and pull the collar off. Note the placement of the rubber seal before doing so:

The tool should now break apart. I had to stick a flat screwdriver into the join to get it started.
Et voila:

Some close ups of the internals for your enjoyment. In the first picture, I've highlighted a nut which fell out, and where it needs to go on re-assembly:

Now its time to open the gearbox. There are four screws which need to be undone. In the picture below they are already partially undone:

With the screws undone and removed, lift the gearbox plate away. This will reveal the internals.In the first picture, I've highlighted a small metal bush which will fall out and where it needs to go on re-assembly:

In mine, the gear and disc mechanism came away with the gearbox plate. It seems to be held in place with grease and dirt, but I won't know for sure until I take the final drive apart to replace the gear. I'll cover it in my next post. The pictures below clearly show the damage to the brass gear.

As I say, I'll do another post once the new parts have arrived. I thought I might as well do the brushes whilst I've got the tool open.

More soon, no doubt....


D

Mondeo ST24: front wishbones. Again...

In a previous post I said a bit about the new wishbones I was fitting to my car. The wishbones came from an autofactor selling on ebay and were a steal at £41 the pair (delivered).

That was last October.

Here we are today, just over nine months and 9000 miles later, and I've been at it again. The ebay wishbones turned out to be utter shit. For the last month or so I've been grappling with a tram-lining car that's been swaying left or right and bumping and clunking along. Initially I discounted the wishbones even though the symptoms were classic knackered wishbones. However, on closer inspection when I was fitting new brake pipes last week, I could see that the bushes on both sides were extremely perished. The rear bush on the left-hand side was starting to fall apart and I could wobble the mounting with my fingers. On removal, both ball joints were clearly also shagged. In fact, I'd say that they were in a worse state than the ones I took off last October (which were four years old and had done 40,000 miles...). Not much of a bargain after all. There are some pics for your enjoyment, below.

This time I've fitted a proper make that came from Germany. Cheaper than Ford's own, but hopefully will last a bit longer than the junk off ebay. One 'plus' about doing the job again so soon is that it was an absolute piece of piss to do. And my car feels great to drive. Again.

More soon, no doubt...

D

Rover 25 Head gasket failure - repair

The past couple of Sundays I have been mostly replacing the head gasket on my friend's Rover 25 (K series 1.4 16v). In an earlier post on this site I replaced the inlet manifold gasket which was obviously failing and leaking water into one of the combustion chambers. After that repair the car ran quite well for a few months but gradually started playing up again. Eventually, it was taking so much water that it was time to park it up and consider the options. Since my friend likes her little car so much, the only viable option was to replace the head gasket. And so here we are.

Now, I'm not doing a step-by-step on this either. Instead, I'll just list the resources that I relied on for this job.

Someone doing the same job

Timing marks

Replacing the water pump

Cam-belt fitment

I also picked up these two pictures of a suitably timed engine. I can't for the life of me find them again so I can't give the credit even though its due. If these are your pictures, I hope you don't mind me using them:

Tool-wise, the only exceptional things were a 22mm socket (for the crank pulley bolt), breaker bar (for the crank pulley bolt), and a torque wrench for the new head bolts. After that, it was bog standard sockets and spanners (I used various bits from my 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" sets). A few weeks before starting I asked my friend to douse the exhaust manifold bolts with some Plus Gas from time to time. That worked a treat and there were no problems during removal.

The pictures below are of the old head gasket which is clearly absolutely shot. But before we even got to that, we were surprised and appalled at the amount of black silicone that a previous person had used on the cam carriers. This had basically blocked all the little channels that feed oil to the hydraulic tappets and explains why the engine in this car had such a top-end rattle. The silicone had been applied liberally to the camshaft seals which were crispy and shot:

Anyway, here are some pics of the head gasket and the head and block before and after cleaning.

Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures of the head, etc, before cleaning. It was a big old mess in there though interestingly, there was not a trace of oil anywhere in the water system. The problem was water getting into the oil and I think that might have been down to a broken thermostat (stuck closed). Who knows? For anyone interested, these are the parts I've fitted:

Head set with new bolts

Water pump kit (including cambelt and new tensioner)

New thermostat, oil, filter, coolant, cam-lock tool and bits and pieces. Bill for parts was around £170. Worth every penny when (with the aid of a jump start from my Mondingo), it started pretty much on the turn of the key :)

More soon, no doubt....


D