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Re: (ET) Pulling bearings on mower motors



Meantime I also took the tall thin motor off the tractor and brought it in for service. This is the one that had the branch lock the blade and before I could shut it down smoked the wires leading to it. Taking off the top showed that two of the commutator bars were higher than the others, probably due to the wonderful circuit breaker.... not.

Anyway, took it in, pulled the hat, started working on it. For tall motors you have to tap the shaft end to get them out of the shell, doing it with a block of wood and small gentle taps seems to get it out without damaging the bearing. If you're replacing the bearing wham away I suppose.

With the armature out I was able to use a set of slip pliers to press in the high commutator bars (on opposite sides of course. My guess is the heat lifted them a bit, with them back in I could hear a slight tick on one of them when I installed the brushes and the top assembly so I got a file and chamfered the edges slightly to smooth things. Tested again, no noise so I used the wire brush to clean them up and some 1000 grit sandpaper to smooth them out.

The brushes looked ok, chip on the side of one so I took them out, ran the file (watch file, very fine) across the sides to make sure they were smooth then put the motor back together.

When putting the armature back in hold it carefully as it will be grabbed by the magnets and could chip them. Get it in, then with a centering punch in the back end of the armature gently tap it down so the bottom bearing fits in the bottom of the housing. Small taps do it.

Assembled, tested on a 12 volt battery and no more ticking and sounds fairly good. I'll reassemble it and try it out in the tractor, my guess is the high commutators were lifting the brushes and not all of the windings were providing power (also why it didn't stop immediately when mower was shut off but didn't just coast).

Never dull.

On 4/21/2024 4:28 PM, Christopher Zach via Elec-trak wrote:
Ok, so I went out to the shed and pulled the bearings on an older fat motor armature. Here are some thoughts:

1) The screw to take off the blade hub (hat) needs to be a 2 inch, 7/16 thread socket head screw. ACE hardware stores have 1.5 inch steel and 2 inch stainless. Get the 2 inch one.

2) When screwing it in you should be able to go 10 full turns. Note that although the hole is threaded the blade bolts didn't really go in far, so most of the thread in there is crapped. Might want to clear it with a thread cutter, just don't break the thread cutter off in the hole or that's probably that.

3) I went in 5 turns with my bolt before it got tough to turn on my motor (another spare I had went in 10) which I figured was "good enough". In my case it was.

4) The bearing puller set Dean posted is what I have, it's great, when you hook it up to pull the hub remember not to tighten it so tight it grips the shaft. Use the big puller for all work, there are reasons.

5) Put some grease on the head of the bolt so the puller can turn easier against it. Wheel bearing grease is always nice to have.

6) Turn, wait, turn a bit more. Slow. It will eventually come.

7) Removing the bottom bearing from the bottom of the motor housing case is a pain. It should not be that tight.

8) When removing the bottom bearing do NOT try to grip the bearing from the inside race. Doing so risks nicking or cutting the armature wires down there especially if the factory bearing was driven too far and popped the circlip

9) Speaking of which make sure the circlip is proper on the motor shaft. Sometimes it's bashed back.

10) Pull the bearing slowly, you don't need the bolt once the blade hub is off.

11) I clean up the shaft with a wire brush on the grinder to get rid of the crud, and put on the new bearing with a tiny bit of grease on the inside and tapping it on with a socket plus wood buffer plus hammer that's just the size of the inner race. Don't pound it too far, just to the point where it touches the circlip. You can go too far and drive the circlip down, then you have to pull it and start over.

12) Top bearing is easy to replace, just needs to be put on flush with the shaft.

13) I put a thin bit of anti-seize on the new hub just so in 50 years someone will try to remove it and go "wow this was simple. Thank you old man from 50 years ago!"

Now I need to find a fat motor top and assemble this with the shattered magnet to see if/how it works. Then pull the new thin motor so I can get the hub off of it, then the armature out, then take a look at what I can do to press the high commutator bars back down....

Never dull. Glad I have a stash of bearings, the old ones are really in pretty sad shape. New ones are so nice and quiet....

C

On 4/20/2024 4:38 PM, metman glasgow-ky com wrote:
I use a socket head cap screw that is long enough to go all the way to the bottom of the threaded hole in the armature and still stick out at least an inch from the flange. Using that style of bolt/screw will essentially provide a "center" for the point of the puller to stay centered. Just make sure that you grab hold of the smaller diameter of the blade clutch (hat) and not the larger flange diameter. The flange and the hub are brazed together and you can either bend or break the flange loose from the hub if you pull on the flange. Someplace I've got pictures of this process, but right now I can't find them in my files. Let alone remember how to upload them here.

Mike Wallace
Glasgow, KY
270-404-0511


On 2024/04/20 2:12 pm, Christopher Zach via Elec-trak wrote:
While we're on the subject of motors, I forgot:

How does one find a bolt that will allow the hat to be pulled from the motor shaft?

I have bearing pullers and I know you can't press against the end of the blade hat: You have to press against something that goes into that threaded end (preferably to the end so it doesn't shear the threads) But what kind and size bolt do you use that allows the bearing puller to have something to center on and not crush it sideways immediately?

I used to just cut the thing off, but with the limited number of parts I'd prefer to do it the more "right" way.

Also is there a mail order motor repair service that can rewind the tall thin mower motor armatures? What kind of info would you give them to do it?

Thanks!
C

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Elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
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