7x12 Horizontal Bandsaw Drive Wheel Replacement

This saw is around 17 years old and gets used daily for cutting metal and plastic stock to make parts for the business. One day, the cast iron drive wheel let go with a loud bang, nearly cracking in 2 pieces.
In this video, we'll be replacing the drive wheel. End result was the unexpected elimination of most of the vibration the saw had been having. Could be the initiation of the crack in the drive wheel started that vibration a few years back.
Closer examination showed it was likely a bad casting with lots of porosity visible in the 25mm center bore. Might have been able to weld this up with some aluminum bronze filler, but it would have broken in short order.
Harbor Freight had no parts available for this model saw that was discontinued 10-15 years ago. Their new model saw is nearly identical, having a few new guards, safety features and paint scheme. However, they have no cross references for parts, you need to call their support department and try to explain what part you need. Browsing their on-line parts page for the newer model saw:
manuals.harborfreight.com/man...
shows nothing like this sort of part.
Harbor Freight saw:
www.harborfreight.com/1-hp-7-...
Luckily Grizzly has an identical saw and their updated parts ordering page is excellent.
Grizzly Saw:
www.grizzly.com/products/griz...
Parts:
www.grizzly.com/products/g056...
The trick I use to cross reference the part numbers is to look up the part's code number on the HF saw manual and then look up that same code number on the Grizzly part number page. For this drive wheel assembly, the HF code is 231, and the p/n is 181214-2S. On the Grizzly parts page (link above), the same 231 code is for this same part: Grizzly P0561231 - DRIVE WHEEL. The Grizzly p/n is of course different, but the part I received has the same p/n cast into the drive wheel as the original HF p/n. I think HF uses the original mfg. p/ns, while Grizzly has their own p/n system. Note for saw model G0561 this drive wheel is P0561 231, decoded as Part #231 for Saw #0561. Ultimately, you can just skip the intermediate step and use the parts diagram number from the HF manual and append that to P0561 to come up with the Grizzly number.
More to come...
Subscribe for more content like this
Comment, rate, share & click the bell icon
And as always, thanks for watching
Intro/Outro:
Louisiana Fairytale by Austin Rogers
web.archive.org/web/201704022...

[@The4Crawler]

See the video description for a parts ordering "tutorial" on how I found this part by cross referencing the HF/CM parts diagram information to the Grizzly parts ordering web page.