Looking to add a treadmill motor to a JD Wallace vintage bandsaw.

[C-Bag]

I really don't know what to say about the gear oil. I was a total air cooled VW man until I couldn't get the German parts anymore and converted over to Nissan in the 80's. And in the brutal heat of Central Valley CA always ran Castrol 20-50 in the summer. So I always thought heavy was better. But then when they started using lighter and lighter oils in engines and even motor oils in transmissions in motorcycles I had to rethink that whole thing. To me those gears are so heavy duty in the saw as to be overkill. I would tend to put something like Mobile1 in it as that stuff is incredibly sticky and won't break down and gum up. In a splash system like that unless you have a leak the drive gear is always going to be picking up oil out of the sump.

For me it's always about finding the sweet spot. 7/9" grinders are too big for me because I don't like to use two hands to hold the thing up. I'm usually holding on to the work with one hand and the other holding the grinder. Mikita was also the only one who still had the thumb switch instead of the paddle switch. I hate paddle switches and see them as totally unsafe. If you've ever had to set one down quick and wasn't watching where you dropped it only to have the paddle bump a piece of metal and start back up on the bench you're a better man than I. Paddle switches make me grab the grinder too far back too. But with Makita like so many lines the lo end are throw aways so I avoid them. They used to have a heavy duty 4" but last time I was in the market they didn't. The 4.5 and especially the 5" were the ones you'll only find in welding supply stores. That to me says something. But when your grinder is your main tool for sawing, heavy grinding and finishing you gotta have something that lasts and is light enough and powerful enough. Heavy is not safe either IMHO. In the field you usually don't have a vise and are lucky if you have a bench to clamp to so having a grinder it took to hands to hold up was not safe.

My seal and forget is from my old days in rebuilding VW's and aircraft. If it's machined metal on metal like case halves good old AeroSeal#3. Never hardens and never leaks. I've got a bottle of it from the 70's and it's still good. Very old school obviously. Straight RTV seeps over time in my experience, but if you do the cereal box gasket no problem.

For the hoist I used a combo of tow chain(also HFT) and a huge truckers hooked ratchet strap. I have a huge assortment of straps and chains from my days as a millwright. I also have an attachment I've made for the end of the hoist. It slips into the tubing of the hoist arm so I could reach under the middle of the camper shell so I could install and take it off my pickup by myself. Got rid of the old Nissan Hard Body and its shell and thought why am I keeping the camper shell gooseneck? But I had to pull the humongous 2hp motor off my mill and it worked perfectly for that. In my area cl has hoists all the time, but not always the folding one and you have to know the price because these silly people want new or better price for the things. I think I got mine on special for like $175, I can't build it for that.