Abstract: A tufting machine belt driven drive assembly (5) for use with a tufting machine (7) is disclosed. The drive assembly includes a spindle assembly (24) rotatably supported on the tufting machine with respect to a looper drive shaft (31) and a spaced and parallel knife drive shaft (34). The spindle assembly is rotated in timed relationship with the rotation of tufting machine drive shaft (16) by a drive sprocket (20) mounted on the tufting machine drive shaft, a flexible timing belt (21) encircling the drive sprocket and a driven sprocket (23) formed as a part of the spindle assembly. The spindle assembly has a pair of cam assemblies (52a, 52b) affixed to the spaced ends (41, 42) of the spindle shaft, each cam assembly having an offset stub shaft (54a, 54b) with respect to the longitudinal axis of the spindle shaft for orbiting the spindle shaft.