Well...… this was a bit of a struggle
Started at 8am this morning trying to clean off the grunge on the outside of the motor. What ever that stuff is, brake cleaner had no effect on it. All the brake cleaner accomplished was to flush away what ever the wire brush managed to lift. Spent a good hour and a half working at it.
Pulled the bearing caps off (The shaft end one is lower left in the image) . Well the bearings were well greased so no worries there. Now you can push and pull the shaft and see that the bearings will move in the end covers, so looks like those have to come off next.
The shaft end cover came off easy-peasy. Now the rotor wants to come out but something in there is holding it back. Hmmm..... must be that centrifugal switch you hear click when it's winding down.
Well.... the back cover (electrical end) gave me no end of grief. Could get the start of a hair line crack going but nothing wide enough to pry it off. I tapped and pulled for an hour to no avail. Finally I took a utility knife blade and tapped that into that hair line crack and she started to open up. Finally it popped off.
Disconnected the switch assembly and out came the rotor, switch and bearings. Phew.. it's now 12:45 pm.
As for the bearings, I'm not perceiving any issues what so ever with them. Appear tight and turn freely.
So dunno now? Replace them anyways?
Any suggestions as to how clean the crud out of the cage? Blowing it out with compressed air is the only thing I can think of.