Washer stopped working. Took out motor, one brush worn down to the wire, other one OK. Commutator worn and burned. Have lathe, so could skim comm., but can't strip motor because the belt drive pulley won't go through the end housing. Pulley is very tight shrink fit to shaft. Anyone out there solved this problem?

Steve, June 2014

What we normally do in the trade and is usually all that is required is to fit the brushes then run the motor on spin speed and dress the commutator whilst running with a carborundum comm stick, this cleans the comm and beds in the brushes to the profile of the commutator. Think you might have given yourself a lot of unnecessary work. Make sure you clean out the grooves in the comm or the copper strips will short out.

Kenjo, June 2014

Done a bodge. Blocked up the motor on the lathe bed, chucked the pulley in the lathe with a thick piece of belt leather to protect the teeth on the pulley, ran the whole shebang at 130 rpm to begin with, and used a medium 5/8" flat file through the motor cage to take the ridges off the comm. Ran up to 250 rpm with a fine file to finish - wouldn't want to go higher than that in case it all got loose. Cleaned out the comm grooves with a piece of hacksaw blade profiled into a hook and ground down to the right thickness, and finished off with a small flat Swiss file to take off the rough edges. Ran it all up under a DTI and everything is within 2 thou. Finish not great, but then, it is a bodge after all. About to order brushes..... watch this space.

Steve, June 2014