(ET) Front Lift Motor

["Tom Coate" <tcoate coate org>]

A while back I noticed that my front lift motor suddenly seemed to have 
gotten a
lot weaker then it used to be.  It sounded weaker, and could no longer 
lift the
front mowing deck.  It also would cut out completely for a while, and then 
come
back to (weak) life.

So, I pulled the beast out and cleaned it up and made sure it was decently
lubed.  This made it a little better, but not what it should be.  Now it 
can
lift the deck -- if I do it in a series of about 10 second bursts, with a 
good
rest in between each.  Worse yet, when I run it with nothing attached, just
pulling the strap in and out, it can only run for about 20 seconds at a 
time
before cutting out on the thermal overload.  I also noticed that with 
nothing
else running (i.e. not using drive motor or PTO) just running the lift 
with no
load runs the ammeter up to almost the top of the green band.  Don't 
remember
how it was before, but that seems high.  (And relative to some of the 
earlier
discussions, I am running mine at the standard 18v level.)

I can't find much in the manuals I have access to about care and feeding 
of the
lift motor.  Any tricks to try?  Or have I possibly started loosing one of 
the
windings?  I did notice that it had an adjustment on the bearing at the 
end of
the worm gear.  Any magic to how to set that?

- Tom Coate
E-20, Leesburg, VA