Kobalt compressor and the flying keyway

[pocoloco71]

This is not a knock on them, just some fyi. I was blowing of some dirt on
the frame I was cleaning today and all of a sudden the compressor starts knockin
and wailing. Run to turn it off, and I'm thinking fan belt loose. So I check
everingthing the manual says.Call the 866 number.I give her my model ect.
And she says see if the keyway is lined up with the little pulley. Nope I say.
and she says, They fly out, look around you may find it. I did. She says I
send you a belt, new pulley, a set scew, and a new motor. Thank you very
much. She seemed to indicate that set screws loosen regularly and the key
way flys out, so you want to use plenty of red locktite. No hassle, no Joe
Friday,nothin, just bam. I run the checks, oil changes etc, but it doesn't
mention the keyway nut. I never owned one with this much capacity befor
so this may be common knowledge.

[Piece of Work]

Thanks for the heads up. I have the same model and will be checking it every time before I fire it up.



-Mark

[LONGHAIR]

I have the same one too and I hav not heard about this problem either. Mine is a few years old though and never had a problem. Maybe a newer manufacturing glitch?

Just an FYI the little loose piece is the "key" ....the groove that is fits into is the keyway. These must be using a square key. They give a little more latteral movement, which will allow you to align the pulleys over a wider range or to use pulleys with wider hubs for multiple grooves.
Smaller "woodruff" keys are rounded on the motor shaft side. They cannot fall out unless the pulley comes all of the way off. These are usually more of a press fit situation, but not always. Straight keys are more user friendly

[pocoloco71]

This lady acted like they had a batch lately. She insinuated somebody forgot
the locktite. Appreciate the teach on the terminology. Anyways I made
a puller for the pulley, realigned the pulley and put the key back in. The
keeper part is gone who knows where. It ran it a little bit and the key kept
on trying to walk back out. I tried to find a bolt with proper threads for
the crankshaft on the motor and had no luck. Now it may have been
wrong but I reached up there and hit the key with a little tack weld and it's
there. It can be removed if I need to. Anyways I was back working.

[LONGHAIR]

The bolt may have left-handed threads. If it does, you will need a specialty hardware/fastener supplier to get one. It is not the most common thing.

[pocoloco71]

The smaller pulley had the key and the keyway. What ever bolt and keeper
was in it was gone. I actually did think of that because you are right about
that as the larger pulley is machined for left hand threads. So when i
couldn't start anything I had in the threaded end of the motors crankshaft
pulley I gave up and put the tack weld there. It may be blasphemy to a
machinist or somebody like that but it worked and did not seem to unbalance
the motor or anything. They are going to send me a motor, pulley, key, and
a belt and the keeper for the key, don't know exactly how it looks. I imagine they will want me to return at least their motor and if
that is the case, I can easily remove the tack from the keyway. If they
had mentioned that you needed to check on this situation I would have
gave it a look. When I mentioned that to the lady. She said it was not
expected but it was happening lately and that i should not have a
problem if I would just use the red lock tite. Thanks for your information
and maybe this ounce of prevention will help anybody else with one of
the to prevent the pound of care

[70rs/ss]

If I owned a Kobalt compressor, I'd call and see if they didn't owe me a new motor, etc. It wouldn't hurt to have a spare!

[1Ton]

I got the same compressor. I will have to check that out. Good post.

[Rollie396]

Out of curiosity,did they want the old motor back?