Published: 04 March 2020

Hits: 875

Finally got the rest of the motor apart. The internal fan was pressed on the shaft pretty well. Thought the fan was going to break when pulling it off with a gear puller. I sprayed some PB Blaster last night which I think helped. Great puller, plus some taps with a hammer, and she came off ok.

Now to continue the new face mount, front bearing, and air cooling design.

Published: 29 February 2020

Hits: 985

Per a few online sources the VW engine rotates CW when viewed from the rear of the engine.  AKA CCWDE (Counter clockwise drive end). 

Default brush location is located inline with the field coil mounting bolts.  Example picture:

Advancing the brushes is opposite the rotation direction.  So CCW when viewed from rear of motor.  My motor seemed to have the brushes in the 0 degree default location.

Disassembly:

Disengage the brush springs and remove the brushes so they are not forced against the commutator.  Had to push down the spring mount, then push towards the brush to free, then up and out.  After both spring mounts are removed, the brush slides out easily.

Remove the 4 bolts from the rear of the motor.  This will free the rear shaft bearing.  I did this after removing the front housing, which was a mistake.

Stand the motor on the rear, and remove the front housing by pulling up.  Going to be some resistance because of the rear bearing.  Front housing removed:

The rotor should pull out from the top. If not, its the rear bearing wedged in it's housing.  I ended up placing the motor on it's side, and removing the rear housing to free the rotor.  Notice the "1" stamped on each part to keep orientation when re-assembling.

Adjusting the brushes via the common circular mounting plate in the rear housing seems like a pain.  The electrical connections would all have to be re-worked.  Thinking I'm going to redrill the mounting holes on the rear housing, and rotate the whole mess.  It's a cast piece with a pilot, so it should be pretty easy to drill and won't require super accuracy.

I learned the front housing does not have a shaft bearing.  Just a couple seals.  Seems kinda weak, I might consider redesigning this for a few reasons -- possibly reduce overall length, add shaft bearing, and help incorporate better face mount.  I'm already planning on machining the shaft to remove the spline, so not the end of the world to go further.

This thing is a disgusting mess, a lot of cleaning needed.

Edit: 

Brandon Wilkins on Facebook EV Forum,  / skweeks_n_leeks on the diyelectriccar forums found a picture of this motor with a front bearing:

Sure looks like mine did not have one installed.  My comments to Brandon upon finding this out:

"No kidding! When I pulled the shaft seal plate off, I kinda felt the shaft drop down a but. Now that I think about it, damn thing is missing a bearing! This counter bore and turned shaft is setup perfectly for it (see my pic here). It's probably the same bearing as the rear. I'll measure it up this weekend. It's either a 1-3/16" (which seems to be an oddball), or a 30 mm (more likely). Even though all the fasteners are imperial, so it would be odd to have metric bearings. But who knows at this point."

And further thinking about this motor I got myself into, some additional comments to Brandon on Facebook EV Forum:

"So along with a missing bearing for who knows how long, there was 3 different length bolts (and 1 cross-threaded) holding that seal plate in place. Who know what else was hacked up on this thing, dammit. I'm also realizing this is waaayyy too long to fit in my ride (been crossing my fingers this whole time I could make it work). I'm actually considering removing this cooling fan, cutting the shaft short, and adapting to the middle housing to make the unit shorter. Then add my own cooling where I adapt to the transmission. This is becoming a project!"

To be continued... 

Published: 25 February 2020

Hits: 469

Got the motor in today.  Traction motor from an old Clark 25 Forklift.  Thing is a beast.  185+ lbs, 11" dia., and 17 1/2" long roughly.  Has a splined shaft that is going to be a pain to deal with, and looks like it will be very close to not fitting in the car.  But other than that, looks good.  Did a little test run, and it fired up with 12 volts.  Little vibration, and a lot of dirt but otherwise ran smooth.  To be continued...

A pretty good video about the basics of a DC series wound motor.

Published: 18 February 2020

Hits: 438

Pretty simple process, remove (4) hold down washer, disconnect the fill and breather lines and electrical connections, and pull the tank. 

Little bit of a challenge getting this fill port removed.  Seems it's threaded into the fill pipe, need to look further.