Gearbox Key
 

Has anyone else had the problem of the key flying out of the motor shaft in the gearbox? We ended up creating a collar to keep them on.

Re: Gearbox Key
 

just fixed ours today. your talking about the andymark toughboxes? i put that several of those black washers on mine. one kept it down and the 2nd kept it from sliding out. i believe your talking about the CIM gear?

Re: Gearbox Key
 

No, but we used our own keystock.

Re: Gearbox Key
 

We had the same thing happen. Not a big deal. Just make sure a tooth of the locking snap ring is in the keyway, or put some sort of little nylon spacer/washer or something.

Re: Gearbox Key
 

We finally got out drive train put together and tested it by powering up the motors. One side was fine the other started working then just the quiet whirl of the motor spinning. Someone saw the 1/16" key sitting inside the gearbox. I had two of my freshman working on it today. They took it apart, we fixed it and tried it again. Same thing. Must have taken it apart three times. I'm going to go get a longer key tomorrow. That should solve the problem.

Re: Gearbox Key
 

We've had the same problem in our gearboxes. We put some loctite on the key and made sure we had a tooth of the lock ring on top of the key.

Re: Gearbox Key
 

Or just read the post above yours. ;)

Just add a washer and you're good to go. The toughboxes this year did this and its easily fixed with a washer.

Re: Gearbox Key
 

Yup we had the same problem, just add a washer like said above. I picked a smaller diameter one and turned it on the lathe to make a tighter fit.

Re: Gearbox Key
 

Just because a tooth on the lock ring lines up with then keyway doesn't mean your key is safe. That's an assumption that 228 made last year, only to have the machine key fall out when it slid through a gap in the teeth (somehow the lock ring rotated).

If you use a [tight fit] washer with the lock ring, or alternately a shaft collar, you can prevent this. The CIM shaft is 8mm diameter, which is only a few thousandths larger than 5/16"; you should be able to use an oversize tolerance 5/16" washer.

Re: Gearbox Key
 

Just a note, it is a 2mm key.