(ET) lift motor ground fault found

[Chris Zach <czach computer org>]

Ok, so I took apart the front lift motor, as it had gone to ground...

First, the thing was *FULL* of carbon crud. As in yuck. Cleared that 
out, checked. Still fault.

After cleaning it up I took off the brush assembly. One of the brushes 
was down to 25%, the other was quite simply gone. Replaced the missing 
brush, checked the field windings. Oddly enough they had not gone to ground.

Checked the armature: Yup. Ground.

The armature smelled like baked wire. They all seem to, this one appears 
to have had it's insulaion burned somewhere and simply went to ground.

I have some spare armatures from chrysler lift motors. Note: Even the 
wrong side ones are handy to have: You have the right side gear 
assembly, and the armatures/brushes interchange.

The third wire that goes back to the rear of the motor also was totally 
baked. Bad design. So I driller a hole in the side of the motor, and 
installed a new wire going out the side.

The motor is together again, no ground faults. I think I'm going to run 
it at 12 volts instead of 18 from now on: I'm really sorry to say this 
but I think running these motors at 18 volts just burns up the wiring 
when they load up with something like the snowblower. Running them at 12 
will be a bit slower, but do we really care *that* much?

Chris

PS: The wire size and windings are identical between an Elec-trak 
original motor and a generic mopar one. Thus they are *NOT* specialy 
wound or anything for 18 volts.