Milwaukee Fuel vs Dewalt drill for your Clam drill plate auger?

[buz23]

Are you going to mount that new Fuel drill to a clam plate???

Yup, its in the mail too.  Now contemplating an extension.  There's a lot of them out there, mostly pretty pricy this year.  Anyone know which ones will extend a lazer to a clam plate (besides the one clam sells?).  I'm sure the lazer hand auger extender would work, but are there others?

[Shack man Shoney]

Good thinking on the clam plate.... I have seen pictures of what can happen to your drill if the auger catches. You wont be taking a bucket of fish off the ice that day, It will be a bucket of scrap. 

[tswoboda]

Yup, its in the mail too.  Now contemplating an extension.  There's a lot of them out there, mostly pretty pricy this year.  Anyone know which ones will extend a lazer to a clam plate (besides the one clam sells?).  I'm sure the lazer hand auger extender would work, but are there others?

Why are you not interested in the Clam hand auger extension?

[luv2fish2]

i got the clam / lazer/ milwaukee i got the clam extension for $15.00 works great highly recommend and it's the cheapest an it'a adjustable 6-12-18" way to short without it 

[buz23]

Why are you not interested in the Clam hand auger extension?

I'm just thinking they might be hard to find.  After reading about wobble issues on some I think I want to buy one local.

[river rat78]

Good thinking on the clam plate.... I have seen pictures of what can happen to your drill if the auger catches. You wont be taking a bucket of fish off the ice that day, It will be a bucket of scrap. 

Those people are probably the dumb ones. If the auger catches you stop drilling. Its that simple. Ive had no problem the past 4 years without the clam drill plate.

[Shack man Shoney]

Those people are probably the dumb ones. If the auger catches you stop drilling. Its that simple. Ive had no problem the past 4 years without the clam drill plate.

Which drill are you using?

[river rat78]

Which drill are you using?

Rigid Hammer Drill/Driver 18v. Has over 600lbs of torque.

[Shack man Shoney]

Rigid Hammer Drill/Driver 18v. Has over 600lbs of torque.

The Rigid does not turn as fast as the Milwaukee fuel does and the fuel is pushing out considerably more torque at over 725 inlbs. Its not a matter of just simply stopping the drill if it catches. These guys didn't have time to simply stop. It can snap the top of the transmission/gearbox completely off. Some of this can be due to the cold conditions the drill is operating in. The clam plate can stop this from happening because you wont be relying soley on a clamp on handle. Im not trashing any other drill just stating a point.

[river rat78]

The Rigid does not turn as fast as the Milwaukee fuel does and the fuel is pushing out considerably more torque at over 725 inlbs. Its not a matter of just simply stopping the drill if it catches. These guys didn't have time to simply stop. It can snap the top of the transmission/gearbox completely off. Some of this can be due to the cold conditions the drill is operating in. The clam plate can stop this from happening because you wont be relying soley on a clamp on handle. Im not trashing any other drill just stating a point.

When I purchased my drill 4-5 years ago I went with the Rigid because it had the most torque out of any other drill that I saw at the Home Depot or Lowes. I didn't see any of the Milwaukee fuel's. So right now my 5" lazer and 18v Rigid have been good to me. I had a guy try my setup once and he put way too much pressure down on the drill instead of letting the blades do the work. If I saw someone with the clam plate on the ice I would love to ask them if I could try it. But right now I'll stick with what I have.

[buz23]

My new M18 Fuel hammer drill arrived today.  Got the chuck screw out with no problem but no luck banging the chuck itself off.  Going to let it rest a bit, then cheater bar or take it to a friend with an impact driver.  Part of my problem is I can't seem to hold the drill rigid enough when I bang on the allen wrench.  Looks so easy on U-tube.

[Agronomist_at_IA]

My new M18 Fuel hammer drill arrived today.  Got the chuck screw out with no problem but no luck banging the chuck itself off.  Going to let it rest a bit, then cheater bar or take it to a friend with an impact driver.  Part of my problem is I can't seem to hold the drill rigid enough when I bang on the allen wrench.  Looks so easy on U-tube.

Had same problem......don't bother with the cheater bar. Just put the drill in a vice. tighten a bolt into the cuck and impact it off. You'll never get it off they way your trying.........I fought it for a week before I did the impact way.

[buz23]

Man, there was lots of loc-tite on the chuck threads of my Fuel M18.  Buddies electric impact wouldn't touch it, but we got it off with a longer allen wrench.  Only trouble is - now the ring which selects mode is stuck on "drive" mode and won't go either way.  Slips at way too low torque to be any use to drive an auger.  Any ideas?

Here's what I found.  I removed the four little screws behind the chuck and (not carefully enough) removed the torque adjustment ring.  Behind this and a torque washer are 6 ball bearings that ride in holes, except a couple of them had jumped out of their holes, jamming the mode change  mechanism.  About 45 minutes of mild cursing, losing a couple of the bearings for a while, trying to get the little detents on the torque adjustment ring to stay in place, etc., etc., I got it to work again.  It successfully switches modes now, hammer drill still works, but somehow I've lost the slipping torque for driving screws.  Maybe I didn't adjust things right.  Oh, well, it will work now for my auger.  If anyone knows how to adjust torque in the drive mode, I'm all ears (and unfortunately, thumbs).

[BaitBucket]

Hah this sounds way easier than the way i did it. yikes...

[buz23]

I figured out where the clutch adjustment is on the Fuel drill.  Once you get the four little phillips head screws off (behind the chuck, which you hopefully successfully removed) and take the round black plate off, you can carefully lift the torque adjustment ring off.  Watch it, there are two little detents in the back of it - one spring loaded, one not.  I kept them in place with a dab of grease.

The torque adjustment mechanism is a black ring that screws into the back of the outer grey adjustment ring with the numbers on it.  Mine had come partially unscrewed, meaning the spring was compressed much more than it should have been.  I threaded the adjustment ring all the way as far as I could into the outer ring, reassembled, and now everything works as it should.  Caution, the round black plate held on by the four phillips head screws has a little cam on it which I pointed at about the 11:00 position to get the holes to line up - they are in a rectangular (not square) pattern. 

If I were going to do it all over again I would get a much bigger allen wrench (longer that is, 10" or so), and make sure the drill was on something pretty solid before I gave it a whack.  I started with a 6" long allen wrench, not big enuf.  Milwaukee does not skimp on the loc-tite.

Now if the UPS man would just get here with my clam plate, I could finish the project up.  The extension came in three days, been 11 since I ordered the plate.

[buz23]

After I typed my last post, I tracked the package delivery for the Clam plate.  Said it had been delivered within the last half hour.  Looked around the porch, garage, didn't see it.  On a hunch I went out the mailbox and there it was, hanging in a clear plastic bag for all to see.  Thanks UPS.  I got up early and cleared the drive but I guess the guy didn't even want to walk down it like he usually does.

All assembled.  No socket head screw or allen wrench included, but I got two with the extension (plus my local hardware store has that kind of stuff).  Put some anti-seize on the drill threads, would have put some weak loc-tite on the screw securing the chuck if I had it, and assembled.  Everything went together well.  Its easy to align the bearing with the drill in it.  The trigger works fine.  Looks like they put some rubberized stuff on the handles (thought I saw someone complaining about it being cold).  Now I just need some ice.

[buz23]

Here's a video of a guy (maybe someone here?) taking the chuck off his Fuel drill.  Just uses a big allen wrench and cheater bar.  Wish I had seen this before I tried to get mine off.  I found the screw pretty easy to get out, though, with just a good size screwdriver.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvJSiDcrUQM

[SouthBear]

I have the 18v milwaukee fuel drill and thinking about getting the clam adapter plate and auger. Why are you guys taking the drill apart? Sorry if I missed the reason why..

[buz23]

The clam adapter that goes into the bearing fastened on the underside of the clam plate has a 1/2-20 thread which mates directly to most 1/2" drills, once you take the chuck off.  The Clam website has a couple nice short video's which explain it all, but they make it look ridiculously easy to remove the chuck.