Festo Orbital Sander (approx 1950's)

[Thbean]

I've had an old Festo Elgi Orbital Sander for a number of years. It is quite possibly the best handheld sander I have ever owned. It is nice and heavy and very comfortable when being used.
It does however have a couple of problems - hence this post,,,, I would appreciate ANY assistance to my 3 questions.

1. Does anyone know what material might have been used for a shock absorber on the four corners of the sanding plate?
   Two of mine are damaged (1 is cracked through and a 2nd is on its way out)
2. Does anyone know how to remove these? I have removed all 8 screws that are holding the plates together however I have yet to find how to remove the motor connection to the plate (the drive connection)
3. It has been exceedingly well used and I thought I would also take a look at the commutator and rotor but I cannot remove the top cover from the housing (I wonder if this might be due to excessive wear on the commutator and the brushes might be holding things back - but I do not want to break anything)

This is from https://www.festool.com/company/company-history#1925-49 and shows the RTE model. Mine is an RTJ model but otherwise identical - but not so tidy perhaps


Cheers

Alan

 

[Thbean]

Good news for me... Sort of.

A few days after posting this i got it completely to pieces.. It was just very tight, nothing too unexpected but I was being overly cautious not to break anything.

The challenge now is to make a set of 4 isolators with the current items consisting of a pair of encapsulated washers made from shore hardness 45 rubber about 30mm high, 20mm dia top and bottom and waisted to about 12mm in the centre.

These were a bespoke item for Festo so not available now. So I'm looking for some help to cast some... BTW, I'm in New Zealand so might be a challenge to get some help..
I got the machinin