Primarily worry - Repair of 1403 Printer Chains
From John Flak - 1403 Print chain rebuilding - August 2006
| 1403 Print chain rebuilding
I agree that rebuilding a 1403 chain is not a task normally done in the field, however I personally replaced the bands on 25 to 30 1403 print chains and never had one fail. It is understandably a painstaking and meticulous job. Since we did Maintenance Agreements on 1403-2's for years which included the print chains and hydro units, we had to find a way to rebuild them rather than buying very expensive new ones. As for the Print Chains, we purchased the 'bands' from IBM parts which came coiled (like tiny band saw blades) in a round plastic container the dia of a coffee cup. I have no idea if there is one left in the world now but it might be worth someone there doing a search before you break or kink your chain. With the exception of printing the 'chain break' pattern my experience is that the chain will probably be damaged or kinked during maintenance (or lack thereof) rather than by heavy printing. The tricks for successfully rebuilding was to get the band in the center of the slugs vertically, holding the type slugs square, distributing the extra space equally around the complete chain and carefully torquing the I bar screws in multiple steps. If you ever get to that point let me know and I will try to document more detail. John Falk |