Disassembly of Cyclone 1680W motor gearbox shaft

[sviatpizdat]

Hello everyone!
The outer shaft of my Cyclone 1680W motor developed a little play. The internals of the gearbox seems to be good - no teeth wear, no play in the satellite bearings. I think the bearings of the outer drive shaft may be worn out. And I need to replace them.

Does anyone know how to disassemble this part? - to remove seal and shaft, and then bearings?



I tried to disassemble it but failed. The bolts of planetary assembly cannot be removed - I bent a hex key.




But probably I don't need to disassemble planetary assembly at all. There are pictures over the internet of the whole planetary assembly disassembled.



I guess the outer planetary cage plate and the shaft are one-piece, and maybe I can just press or hammer everything from the 'outside' to the 'inside' of the gearbox, and the whole assembly + shaft will come out.

 

[amberwolf]

I'm only guessing based on another similar gearbox I once disassembled for curiosity, but the planetary assembly will likely just lift right out. But you probably don't need to remove it to change the bearing.

(if you do: Is the outer ring fixed to the shaft face? If so, then that face spins relative to the whole planetary assembly, and so it can't be bolted to the face of the gearbox, and probably is just held in place by the sun gear on the motor shaft and the spacer ring(s).

It is also possible (though unlikely) that the allen-bolts are threaded the other way from normal, and you may have to turn them the other direction. I can't see the threads in the holes in the second picture to tell if they are left or right hand threaded.

They could also simply have threadlock on them, and that may be defeated by warming up the bolts enough. )

The seal should be removable by carefully prying it out from it's outer edge. It may be relatively hard rubber, or it may be hard plastic coated with rubber.

The bearing is probably interference-fit, so you may need to heat up the front gearbox casing to make it expand, and cool the shaft, then tap the bearing out from behind, or tap the shaft out from in front. Note that tapping the shaft out is likely to damage the bearing if there's any stress between the inner race and the outer race, so once you start you are kinda stuck with continuing. It's probably easiest to stick the whole unit in the freezer (in a ziploc bag to keep moisture out) for an hour or two to cool it, then with it setup in whatever clamps or vises you're going to use to hold the casing while you press things out, if it doesn't come right out, then heat just the front casing (like with a small hand torch, etc), while the bearing and shaft are still cool.

The outer edge of the bearing is probably all within the casing so you likely can't get to it to press that out, it probably has to be done from the center.

Installing the new bearing may require cooling the bearing to press it in; but be careful how you press on it because if you do it incorrectly you can damage the bearing. Press the new one in to the casing face using *only* it's outer edge, and press it onto the axle using only it's inner edge. If you put stress across the bearings between the races, it can damage them or the races or both.

 

[sviatpizdat]

Thx, @amberwolf! It helped. I've removed an outer seal by prying it out from its outer edge with a very small screwdriver. After that everything is held up by the retainer rings. I was preparing for these temperature tricks, but bearings are rather loose-fit than a press-fit. Some of them just fall off, some needed a few gentle knocks of a hammer. Seems that the tolerances of this gearbox is varying quite a lot. The outer* plate of planetary assembly and the drive shaft are one-piece.
* outer - from the perspective of a fully assembled motor.

For anyone, who interested in replacing the bearings:
The shaft bearings are 2 x 16004 (no seal).
The satellite bearings are 3 x 608Z (metal seal). I didn't disassemble the cage; source: https://mrbill.homeip.net/albums/cyclone_motor/pages/page_41.html


Disassembly process:

Remove outer retainer spring (over the seal).
Remove seal by prying it out from its outer edge. The seal itself is double-lip rubber reinforced by metal with a spring for the inner lip.



Remove the retainer spring that was under the seal. The planetary assembly will just fall off, but a few gentle knocks of the hammer are needed, as the shaft is thicker on its end.
The second bearing stays on the planetary assembly. Pry it by knife or screwdriver and then you need to fix the bearing somewhere and then gently knock the shaft out.



Remove retainer spring from the inside of the outer bearing and knock bearing gently.

 

[electric_nz]

Thanks for this- I have one with a dud gearbox and will have a look to see if it’s these bearings. Strange they don’t use a sealed one on the outside.

Great little motors at 58v and 52A!!

 

[pushest]

Thanks You for this guide and photos!