Massive failure leads to new direction.

So my attempt at building a hinged tensioner was a failure. One I spent way too many evenings on.


The wheel impacted the top pulley, and the pillow block's dimensions wouldn't let me mount the hinge any lower, or else it wouldn't move at all.


So I had to throw out all of that and I have to come up with something else. Luckily, I found a bit of slotted angle iron in my scrap pile. So I made a new sliding mount for a pillow block out of some tubing.


Welded it to a bit of flat iron to span the frame with.


As the frame is so cramped at the back, I need a bracket to keep the bolts from spinning whenever I need to adjust the tensioner. So I made this little guy out of some scrap.


Tacked in place just so it doesn't fall out.


All in place. Fits pretty good!


Now for the front. I only had the one bit of slotted angle iron, but that's ok. Up front I have way more space to work in, so I'll just weld 2 bits of flat together with a 3/8th gap in between so I can get some bolts in there.


Here's the other pillow block mount all welded up and drilled.


It's pretty cramped in there. But at least it all fits.


Here's the final product. This actually works, at last!



That's the last bit of major fabrication I have to do for now. Next up, batteries.