Replacing the belt on the Lortone 3A

Ok, it's been a while.  Long enough for me to return from Bahrain, but we'll catch up on that later.  It's craft fair season and I rely on my trusty ole Lortone 3A to polish my creations.  It hasn't been working very well for a while, but I've been making do until I got back Stateside.  Come to find out, I didn't need to, because I was able to snag this 2 pack of Replacement Drive Belts for my Lortone 3A Tumbler on Amazon.  It arrived in 2 days (yay, Amazon Prime) and works like a champ.  But anyway, I digress.  If you use a Lortone 3A, at some point you will need to adjust the belt.  It's pretty simple, just loosen those nuts and push them from left to right, and tighten them back down.  This works because it adds tension to the belt that drives the rods that turn and spin your tumbler barrel.  (Personally, I think this is pretty ingenious- especially since replacement belts are not cheap!)

But, eventually, your belt will wear out and you'll have to replace it.  It's very simple.  How simple, you ask?  So simple even a political science major can do it!  As long as you have a phillips head screwdriver.

First step, slide those 3 nuts (photos above) back over to the left.  You want to reduce tension on the belt so you can remove it.

Next, remove the 4 screws that anchor the blue cover to the rest of the tumbler and lift off the cover.

Don't forget this one!

Then, remove the belt.  In my opinion, it works better if you unhook it from the smooth wheel, then over the fan blades.  Be careful not to catch or bend the blades with the belt.

Replace the old belt with the new one by gently looping it over the fan, setting it into the groove, and gently placing around the wheel- essentially the reverse motion of how you removed it.  Just make sure the belt is laying in the grooves.

As you can see below, the old belt is a bit stretched out.  The newer one works much better.

Replace the cover and screws, and voila!  Off you go!


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