Kapex Housing Replacement

[Coosbay Dave]

Anyone out there replaced their Kapex "housing"?

(KS 120-EB Part No. 201198)

Aged walnut knot from a piece of crown broke the housing right at the apron clip-on area  You don't really realize how much sawdust the apron guides into the exhaust until it comes off.  Really a lot of sawdust here NOW.  I gotta get the housing replaced so the apron will again stay in place.

Kapex fella at Festool recommended I not try this myself, but also said the return-for-service shipping containers are on back order.  Now I am looking into perhaps doing it myself.

Any ideas?

 

[safety1st]

I stumbled into these videos. Maybe they'll help make the decision.


It is a series of videos. Worth a watch.

 

[rnt80]

I wish I had those videos about a month ago.  I had to take off the blade guard on mine and putting everything back together wasn't easy.

 

[j-becker]

I did pretty much the same thing and damaged the internal deflector before the dust shroud attachment.  In short I needed to change the housing.  Luckily it was the left side only (the right side holds all the parts). 

The replacement was actually straight forward.  I had found the video above and it helped me figuring out what to expect.  The hardest thing was retensioning the spring. I took a little piece of aluminum pipe and put it over the end and it was really easy in the end. 

When you order the housing part don't forget to add the stickers.  The ekat only has an assembly in there and I only got the main part and not the stickers when I ordered first. 

So yes, it is perfectly doable.  Compared to packing up the Kapex (didn't keep the box) and sending it in it seemed worth trying.  It definitely was for me.