Greetings, I just got the PALS kit, along with the A-Line-It kit, and
tried to install it on my Craftsman yesterday. The only way I can get
the system to "touch" the trunnion is to take the nut on the adjusting
bolt off and then screw it in all the way. The outside thickness of
the trunnion appears too thin or the mounting holes on the horizontal
or long part of the aluminum pieces are drilled too far out for the
function correctly.
The trunnions are brilliantly designed to require the bare minimum of
raw materials. The portion between the bolt hole and the edge of the
trunnion is just over 0.1875 inches, but that was just eyeballing it,
it's probably less. A further reduction is achieved by having rounded,
not square, ends. I did grind a vertical ~0.125 inch wide flat
contact surface on the trunnion ends per the instructions. The
adjusting bolts required an additional 1/2 a turn to make contact with
the trunnions, and this was with the nut on the bolt removed to achieve
the greatest reach.
The fixes I can think of are to other find someone to drill new
mounting holes closer to the 90 degree angle on the aluminum pieces,
put a piece of metal between the outer trunnion edges and the adjusting
bolt, or get a longer adjusting bolt.. The first would invalidate the
warranty the second (probably) would reduce the accuracy or just plain
fall out. I'd look for longer adjusting bolt but I'm stuck in no-where
SD and driving to buy replacements would cost more than the kit.
(Stupid $3 gas!) Also, the chances of finding the correct size/thread
is iffy.
I've called In-line industries but no one has answered or returned my
calls. Has anyone else had this issue or have any suggestions?
Thanks!
Stoutman wrote:
> > I've called In-line industries but no one has answered or returned my
> > calls. Has anyone else had this issue or have any suggestions?
>
> Send it back and demand a refund.
The PAL system is good in theory, but the variability in trunnions
makes it more difficult to get it working than the literature claims.
I installed mine on a Jet CS and ended up having to grind them down
quite a bit so they'd sit flat against the trunnion around the stud.
What would happen is that I'd get the table aligned with PALS, but when
I tightened down the nuts on the studs the edge of the PALS angle
bracket would push against a curved portion of the trunnion and move
the top out of alignment. Once custom ground the system worked fine.
JP