gripper arm adjustment
The gripper arms on my C&P pilot press weren’t attached when I brought my press home. I thought it looked pretty straightforward how they were supposed to be put on. I’ve gotten them onto the bar beneath the platen, just as the manual shows.
The problem is that the grippers stay forward when the platen moves away and become stuck under the rollers as they come down from the ink disk. This gets frustrating, and messy. How do i adjust this? I was printing fine before I put the grippers on. Should I just take them off again?
I’m not familiar with the Pilot, but it sounds as if a cam (or a part touching a cam) is not moving properly or a spring is missing. Just a guess.
Jenny -
The gripper arm shaft is adjusted by that odd-shaped curly piece on the left side. Loosen the lock nut and slide the piece towards or away from the shaft to position the gripper arms. There is very little clearance, so do be careful. But, once it is locked in place, that oddly-curved piece will control the movement of the grippers in relation to the position of the platen. I’m sorry I don’t have any photos handy. I’ll see if I can take some shots and post them on my site to illustrate this adjustment. I’m sure it will be helpful to many folks.
- Alan
I could have written Jenny’s post from 10/27/07 myself, as I am having exactly the same problem trying to get the grippers to work with my old style pilot. I have tried to follow the instructions on the responses, but can’t seem to figure it out. By odd-shaped curly piece, do you mean the spring, Alan? Any help would be very much appreciated!!
I installed mine with success recently. On my old style pilot, the coil is facing towards the rear. The longer spring arm goes through the hole on the base while the shorter arm goes into the gripper bar clamp. You should be able to see gouge marks on the shorter spring arm from the clamp screw. That gave me a clue on the way it is supposed to be seated.
I was going to post a picture of it on this forum but could not figure out how. I hope that helps.
Updated. Jenny, Annie -
Before I removed these parts to refurbish a Pilot I had, and to set up a Pilot brought to me for setup by a client, I took some photos of the gripper bar assembly on both the old series and new series presses to remind myself how the pieces went together…
I have posted them at http://excelsiorpress.org/photos/pilot/ along with some basic instructions so that this problem will be solved for both of you - as well as other folks who will encounter this dilemma in the future.
I hope this is helpful to you.
- Alan
Excelsior Press.org