Friday, April 10, 2015

Flex Fail

 While cutting holes in the hood of the Miata I destroyed one of my favorite Dremel accessories, the flex shaft.  The inner core, or drive shaft, sheared in two after some pretty hard abuse.
I was pretty sure I was going to have to buy another $30+ flex shaft (or live without it), but I thought there was a chance I could replace just the core.  I contacted Dremel and they provided me with a very helpful part number, which allowed me to find it on eReplacementParts.  I actually ordered two so I would have a spare.  The first one lasted 5+ years, so this is a long play to save $5 on shipping someday.

Once I received the shaft, the first challenge was taking apart the handle.  I removed two screws, the threaded tip and the spring on the bottom, but it wouldn't come apart.  After some unsuccessful prying, I looked online and discovered there is a little metal ring on each end that is practically invisible.  After removing those, it came right apart.

I removed the bit holder and the end of the shaft was exposed.

Here you can see the two pieces of the shaft.

I lightly greased the new shaft and slid it in, and now it's as good as new (except for a few pry marks).

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