Locking Drill Motors

Has anyone looked into locking drill motor gear boxes into gear. Is it the same as last years models?

[Norm M.]

We simply drilled a hole right behind the ring, and screwed in a #6 socket head cap screw. The threads just touch the ring, and hold it in the low speed position. Didn't even open up the second gearbox, just drilled it.

You don't want to be any longer than the 1/4 inch screw, or it will touch some of the rotating elements in the transmission.

[Neill]

To lock the gearbox in gear:

The black plastic piece that holds the drill motor in alignment. This is the flimsy black plastic piece that actually cover the drill motor. Carefully take it off and rotate it 180 degrees. If it was a clock and up was 12 oclock, rotate it to 6 oclock and snap it back onto the gearbox.

When the motor mount is put in 180 degrees backward, it will have a tab that will keep the motor in gear. This tab physically pushes on the white plastic shifter.

No screws necessary!

Neill

[SiliconKnight]

We are machining custom aluminum rings to lock it. Once we machine the part and makes sure that it fits, I'll post the dimensions.

-=- Terence

[kyo11103]

is it basically keeping the movable white piece that's on the motor from moving up and down?

[Parks]

We machined rings to lock the drills in high speed. They work really well and so far we have had no problems.
We also machined parts to lock out the clutch mechanisms too. I would not recommend the latter as it is quite difficult to put them back together without causing permanent damage. But it still works fine.

I highly suggest that all teams lock at least their transmission into gear. The shifters slide very easily and can cause much grief.

[Jim Smith]

We are just using a tie wrap around the drill gearbox body to keep the slider in low. Although as I think about it, there may be some "tie wrap use" rule that I need to go back and check.

[DougHogg]

Originally posted by Jim Smith
We are just using a tie wrap around the drill gearbox body to keep the slider in low. Although as I think about it, there may be some "tie wrap use" rule that I need to go back and check.

We are using a tie wrap also. It seems to be a very good fit just below the gear shift. As for a "tie wrap use rule", we used a mass of them last year, and I haven't run across any rule against them so far in this year's manual.

[Matt Leese]

Be careful using just tie wraps to hold the gear shifter in place. In the past (meaning with a different motor and gear box), tie wraps have broken off the shifter causing the gear box to shift out of gear. When the gear box is out of gear, there is no power to the drive wheels. This has a tendency to happen at the worst possible times.

Matt

[DougHogg]

Originally posted by Matt Leese
Be careful using just tie wraps to hold the gear shifter in place. In the past (meaning with a different motor and gear box), tie wraps have broken off the shifter causing the gear box to shift out of gear. When the gear box is out of gear, there is no power to the drive wheels. This has a tendency to happen at the worst possible times.

Matt

Thanks for the forewarning, Matt.

Last year we had a ball roller (for picking up soccer balls) covered with conveyor belt material that was stitched together with tie wraps. Normal tie wraps sometimes broke due to the high rpm's of the baller roller and impact of the tie wraps with the soccer balls. However, we found some "premium" tie wraps at Home Depot that had metal locking teeth instead of the usual plastic ones. We never had one of those give way, so teams using tie wraps on their drill motors might want to look for some "premium" tie wraps. (Look inside the hole that the end of the tie wrap is being pulled through, and you will see a little piece of metal that is preventing the end from coming back out.)

[Mike Norton]

If you do not use a disk to lock out the high/low you will run into problems if you go under high loads.

We know this from many hours on using these drills motors. Under high load the gear will run into neutral you will not have a high or a low and your gears will strip.


There is a thread that will tell you the size of the disk you need.


I highly recommend to do this if you are not shifting.

[Dick Linn]

The high-strength tie wraps are no doubt the Thomas & Betts parts. Good outfit with good quality electrical connectors and related stuff. T & B has been around a long while.

[Cory]

If you look at the black piece that has 4 tabs on it and the motor goes through, and then connects to the tranny, you will see that if you rotate that piece, the tabs will keep the shifter from moving. This may not be as permanent a fix as youd like, but it would work.

Cory

[srjjs]

Can someone post a picture of how to lock it by rotating the piece? We are beginning to have the same problem.