Planetary Drive head keeps falling out during use

Pinning the shaft like this works. I pre-drilled with a .100” drill, followed by a .125” and then drove a 1/8” spring pin in flush. There is a step in the bore in the hub around the shaft. After pinning I filled this gap with JB weld to increase engagement bearing and I I put a dab of JB weld on both ends of the spring pin to resist walkout. I made sure all the parts slid well on the shaft and redistributed some grease to all the appropriate places.

The person that said Apoxy tothe top was the only one that made any sense to me. That’s what I did and I hope it works.

Here's some pictures the job that I did on it. Was white, I took everything apart, And painted red. I try to put a pin under the planetary but didn't work, Wasn't much space to hit the shaft and be secure. So what I did, I put the pin on the top side. I did use a pain that I bought on Harbor Freight Tool if you decided to make the same job make sure you open up the both ands off the PIN, it will prevent the pin to come off good luck.

After cleaning the housing and shaft squeaky clean, I applied two part epoxy to the splines on the shaft and installed into housing. I let the epoxy completely cure before drilling my 1/8” hole then installing the 1/8” spring pin. In my photo you can see the epoxy squeezed out about a 1/16". This prevented the upper ring gear from fully seating where I could not install the pin through the shaft. I used a razor knife to cut the epoxy off flush and everything fit perfectly!

Thank you for asking this question, I appreciate it and all the responses. The planetary drive came off the shaft on my Kitchenaid after a busy season of making Christmas cookies. So, I bought retainer ring pliers & some JB Weld, ready to epoxy. However, while I was testing the connection between the drive & shaft, I couldn’t get the shaft back out of the drive!! I just smashed it in as far as it would go and put the mixer back together, greasing the gears for the first time in 14 years. It’s working great now, but we’ll see how long it lasts! If the drive comes off again, at least I have my JB Weld handy to glue that thing once and for all. LOL

Before I put something permanent in the planetary, I decided to try like a friction seal. A small gasket, rubber band or even foil wrapped around the rod. Will comment further when I see if this works.

Just happened to us! I'm very grateful to the OP and responders for all the intel!

I'm mechanically enough inclined, and will probably use Loctite 640 sleeve retainer and not go to the extent of pinning. Mainly I don't want to tear the whole thing down to get the shaft out.
Does anyone know how far the ring gear is supposed to be up into the housing?

I see that an earlier post mentioned their ring gear was coming out along with the planetary head. Mine shows about 1/16" below the housing, so it may be coming out as well. There appears to be quite a bit of room above the gear. Wondering if I should try to tap it all the way home, or just what?

Update:

I called Kitchenaid, and not surprisingly they have never heard of this issue! So much for an honest company! But they did provide me a phone number for a repair facility, which I called.

I spoke with a friendly helpful appliance repair tech. He said that the shaft would have to be removed because there is vertical play, and if you attempt to tap the planetary housing into place (as I was going to do), then the shaft (splined end) will not fully seat in its socket.

Remove the shaft and use a block of wood to tap it back into its socket (common sense, if you're re-using the shaft, to avoid damaging the top end).

Also the ring gear gets tapped all the way up into the recess, until it bottoms out.

Also advises to check the gear housing cover carefully if it is the earlier plastic (vs later aluminum), for cracking or broken-off locating pin.

On a possibly related note, does anyone recognize these 2 small metal pieces? After doing the planetary head repair I decided to adjust the bowl-lift height (Pro 600), and at some point I noticed these lying on the counter top. Nobody in the household admits to placing them there. So I'm assuming they fell off the mixer at some point, but no idea...

This just happened to me, and I hadn't initially realized that it was the separation of the splined shaft from the head piece. Confused I was when I tore down the unit to replace both the pin and the lock ring in the upper shaft which weren't broken in the first place, but of course after I removed them, the unit fell out just like it appeared to do during operation. Once I re-assembled and it still occurred that is when I decided to pull the separating part completely off and saw the spline, and then inferred that since it only went back in one way, that it was stripped enough to loosen. I sold off all my shop equipment, so I think I am just going to buy a replacement part. Cheaper than a new mixer. I use my mixer every day, with attachments, so I feel like that unless I could drill it out and insert a pin or set screw, it's only a matter of time before something like increasing the friction tightness would fail again, because bread dough. That is probably what loosened it in the first place.

Same thing happens to our 600. I usually just use a rubber mallet and wack it back on. It seems to stay on for a long time before I have to do it again. Really dumb engineering, other than that a well made machine.