Porter cable model 503 Belt Sander Restoration

I picked up a vintage porter cable belt sander at a local estate sale. It was used by a professional flooring contractor and had lots of use over the years. Though it worked I wanted to restore it back to original condition.

It was packed with oily sawdust that covered everything. It took some time to clean it up enough to find the screws.

Here is how it started.



Got it almost completely apart except for a few things that didn’t want to budge and I don’t want to apply too much force and break anything.

Here is after an hour or two of disassembly and cleaning.


Rotor still attached. Not sure how to pull it out. Seems stuck.

View attachment 1
Do I open up chain or do sprockets come off?

These are last two items to take apart then I’ll finish cleaning and polishing to make it like new.

I love those old Porter Cable belt sanders. I thought about getting one myself, but the Porter Cable I have now is old enough to be American made, and gets the job done well enough. I'll be watching your resto though with envy!

Got the rotor removed. The trick was to press it out on the shop press. Turns out there is a small threaded hole at the brush end and I used that to insert a small bolt that pressed it right out.

Also got sprockets and chain off. One quick spin with inpact wrench took it right off.

All that’s left to remove is the worm gear and bearings. This doesn’t want to budge

Looks very similar to my old one. They are good, strong sanders. I bought mine very used in the late 1980's. Refinished all the floors in my 1-bedroom apartment, on my knees, with mine, and did many other jobs with it. Worked like a charm. Sadly mine was stolen out of my shop when local Hisp. gang members jimmied my door one night. They also took most of my Milwaukee corded tools, but left behind antique Stanley planes that were worth more than the power tools.

I love the locomotive style PC belt sanders. This guy's series of 5 videos should help
with the resto:



(not mine)

I'd also suggest taking a look over at OWWM. Some major vintage PC fanatics there:

http://www.owwm.org/search.php?keywords=porter+cable+503