The more I read about Carolina Bandsaws, the less enthusiastic I am
about my saw. I have reviewed most of the postings in this group.
Carolina Bandsaws seem to be rather poorly engineered and not always
well constructed. None-the-less, my saw is still a large capacity
bandsaw for the price--good for a sculptor such as myself. I suppose
I would buy one again, but I would look for a newer, better-maintained
one or expect to pay less than $250. I began tuning up my saw with
the idea of restoring it to it's original level of function; now I am
ready to start cutting, welding, and generally adapting it to be a
better saw than it probably was at the start.

Jerry said:
I'm a little concerned that the frame just isn't stiff
enough. I'm thinking of welding gussets on the back of the plates.

I have been thinking along these lines too. My idea is to cut two
pieces of 1/8" plate 14" X 3" and weld one on each end of the saw.
One end of the piece would be welded to the square column and one edge
would be welded to the plate that the wheel is attached to. I think
this would add a lot of rigidity with a minimal effort. It should
take care of some vibration. I would trim the wheel covers and
replace the hinges.

I think
your problem must be alignment but perhaps it is that the saw was just
made high. One possible fix would be to put a 5/16" plate on top of
the work surface. You would lose 5/16 of travel, is that a problem?

The throat depth of my saw, as it is, will not allow a cut deeper than
7.75". Isn't it supposed to cut 8.5" deep? I don't think the pivot
is set too high.

First thing I would do is play with the blade guides: they move in
out up and down. You should be able to move the blade around. Then
you'll probably have to adjust the tracking.

I have played around with them. They are set to the positions that
push the blade as far down as possible, in fact, too far I think,
since the lower blade guide assembly is angled in its slots.

BTW, both of my drive
wheels are over 2" from the 1/4" plate so you may want to look at your
gearbox so see if someone shimmed it or something.

I wonder if my gearbox is not original since several people have
mentioned that the gearboxes on these saws tend to give out. Mine is
a Boston Gear Box--300 Series. Is that typical?

BTW, I paid american fab $10 for a manual and it isn't worth much.

I am not surprised to hear that the manual is lame. I received a
couple of pages of alignment instructions from American Fab (for their
newer Ramco saws which appear to be nearly identical to the Carolina
saws) when I ordered some replacement parts. Several sections of the
instructions are confusing or incomplete. For instance, they suggest
using a fish scale to check the descending weight of the saw head in
order to set the spring tension. They say the saw head should weigh
9-10 pounds (without the hydraulic cylinder engaged) if the spring
tension is set correctly. The problem is they don't tell you where to
attach the scale to the saw head. The saw head is a lever--the closer
you put the scale to the pivot point, the greater the weight will be!
Oh well, I can figure out the appropriate pressure by referring to
blade manufacturers PSI recommendations.