On Sun, 2 Nov 2008 20:14:23 -0800, "Bill Noble"
wrote:

I just pulled the gearbox that drives the table on my Abene VF-3 mill - I
got tired of the belt slipping off every time I went to raise the table -
figured it was oil leaking past the old hardened seals that was causing the
problem - once I change the seals we shall see if that is the issue. But,
the question now is:

should I change the flat belt to a ribbed belt - it wouldn't be hard to put
the pulleys on my lathe and turn grooves in them to match a grooved pulley,
but if I did that there would be no going back to the old flat belt - and I
would loose a safety factor

Second Q - would a new flat belt make any difference?

for those who don't know what an Abene mill looks like, there is a photo on
my web page (below) under hobbies/tools - the drive motor for the table is
in the base behind the box holding the electrics

What we put on mine is a ribbed belt. However we left the pulleys
alone and run the belt inside out (the flat side to the pulley). It's
worked great for many years now.