How to oil RV AC motor bearings with no ports 

Thanks for the encouraging comment and I'm glad I could help!

Thank you for your kind reply! I appreciate your positive feedback and hope my video helped at least a little bit.

Paul, that is great! Friend, your comment is gold, and one that I have been waiting for someone to post. I thought this would be the way to go to fix these motors that failed on me, but could never figure out how to replace it with ball bearings; I have no home machine shop like you have to be able to do this. Can you explain in more detail exactly how you did this? Can you list the parts you used and where you purchased them, like the ball bearings?

@@productandequipmentreviews7386 Sizing the bearings is easy, with a caliper - if the size seems 'odd', like a number that cannot be expressed in 1/16 or 1/32 increments, then the shaft is probably metric. That is the ID needed, the OD is not too important, as is the thickness. I machined the bearing holders from aluminum bar on my 6" lathe to the size of the original bearing location and of course, to the size of the new one. There are lots of sources for bearings, but the one I used most is McMasterCarr supply.

@@paulmoffat9306Thanks, Paul. What you did is so great that I would like to make a video of it. Could you contact me so I can get more information from you? My email is: adobemastr@gmail.com Refitting those sleeve bearings with ball bearings is simply fantastic, and I believe many people would be interested in knowing exactly how you did the replacement. Did you happen to take any pictures or video of the project? And do you think there could be a way to replace the sleeve bearings with the ball bearings without having to use your lathe?

That is a great story! Have you considered making a video about this? In fact, I have TWO of these fans sitting around that died on me like so many others of the ones you just described. But your results makes sense considering what I went through With my RV motor. Thanks for the reply!

Thank you for pointing out that link is now dead. That's too bad because it was a decent video on how to remove the motor and is why I did not include any video of how I took it out because someone else had already done that.

Where did you get that ball bearing motor from?

Thanks for watching!

Did you take the motor apart like shown in my video? How did it go?

Glad it was helpful!

@Marilyn Dreamwalker Mejorado That's why you have to take the motor apart so you can re-oil the bearings. If the motor got so hot that the bearing material is "pushed out," you may need to replace that bearing material. In a pinch, I believe you might be able to use sawdust, believe it or not. I read somewhere that is exactly what some motor manufacturers at one time used. And it might be that the bearing got so hot from lack of oil that it is fried and you might need to replace the motor. This is why it is so critical to be able to re-oil those bearings; and to do that, you must take the motor apart as described in my video. Good luck.

That's exactly what I've done. In fact, I have at least two to three replacement motors sitting in my shipping container I use as a storage unit in case another of these motors go out again. I never want to be sitting in the Tucson sun in my RV waiting for a new one to arrive.

I agree with you 100%. Some interesting news: Coleman is now making these motors out of ball bearings. A company called "Emotorpro" is a distributor. This would be a game changer. The problem is, they are selling this motor for over $300. The part # is 1468-3489.

I think you can replace these sleeve bearings but it would require some tools and knowledge that I don't happen to have at this time. These bearings seem to be attached to the housing hubs using some type of rivet system. I've seen sleeve bearings advertised on the Internet (do a google search and you will see what I mean) that I believe would work as replacements, but again, it is knowing how to take them out of their housings and properly replacing them using the right tools. But I think you are on to something and believe it is a great idea. If you figure out a way to do this, please reply and let me know how you did it. Other RV'ers will much appreciate it!

Yes, along with the motor manufacturers who are making a killing because we RV'ers keep replacing them. These people have no conscience and are greedy because they can certainly make motors that don't wear out so soon. All they have to do is put back the oil ports in them. But then they wouldn't sell as many motors.😡

I've never heard of "Fluid Film" but you can use any light oil, like the 3 in 1 in the red bottle (but the blue bottle is better from what I understand). Putting a drop of 3 in 1 on the shaft is certainly better than nothing, but you cannot get enough oil by only doing this: you absolutely need to remove the motor and re-oil the sleeve bearings as I showed in the video. It's not that hard. Now, the video I linked to in order to remove the motor is no longer up so you will have to search around and find another video on how to remove it. As far as the AC continuing to run for a few seconds after you turn it off sounds like an entirely different problem than what my video addressed, but I'm sure there is a video on that as well...you just need to search RU-vid.

@@productandequipmentreviews7386 thank you for the reply 😁

@@winnerscreed6767 You're welcome! Best of luck with your project. I finally put in a mini-split in my RV and I have to tell you it has made all the difference! It was a TON of work to do but worth every dollar and nanosecond of time I put into it. I did not remove my Coleman Mach unit but will leave it up there in case my mini split goes on the blink and I will have the old unit as a backup.

That is a great question, and I thought of that myself, but determined that it was better to remove the motor from out of the AC unit and then disassemble the motor and then re-oil the bearings as you saw in the video. But you know the old saying: "there is more than one way to skin a cat," and perhaps your idea would work. But here's the issue: let's say you could reach one of the bearings by drilling a hole in the housing of the motor and then dripping some oil into it; that might be possible. But the problem is the other bearing that you have to reach, the one that is inside the AC itself; how would you reach that one? This is why I think you need to remove the motor from the AC unit, disassemble the motor itself, and then re-oil the bearings like shown in the video. If you go slow and are patient, it is not that difficult of a job to do.

@@productandequipmentreviews7386 Thank you for responding and great feedback. My AC hasn’t given me issues yet, but I always like to be ahead of some things.

Did you get the squealing stopped?

@@adobemastr it broke down completely before I could , so I just replaced the motor sadly. But your tip was helpful

I looked up this grease and read through their literature; it says nothing about this grease not drying out. there is no way I would use this grease or any other grease on these type of bearings because grease will dry out like the video says. I would stick with using only a light oil as shown in the video.

Grease on sleeve bearings is a bad idea

I tried that for years, and though in a pinch it might help a little bit, the oil is still unable to get into the bearings enough to do a thorough refresh of the bearing material. After trying your method for years and believing it would solve the problem, my motors still seized up. Out of desperation and replacing too many motors, I decided to take the unit apart-including the shroud-and then turned the motor vertically (or "up and down") so the oil would hopefully seep into the bearings that way (gravity feed). This still didn't work, but was certainly better than nothing. Finally, I bit the bullet and took the motor completely apart as shown in my video and did a complete and thorough job of re-oiling the bearings. And by the way, you NEVER use WD40 to oil your bearings! This will actually cause the motor to fail quicker because WD40 is not the proper kind of lubricant needed to refresh bearing material. There are informative videos on RU-vid which go into better detail and explanation than what I briefly stated and I encourage you to do the needed research on this. Many people, including myself at one time, thought using WD40 was a good idea to re-oil motors but I was mistaken. All this to say, the only way I discovered to properly re-oil these motors which do not have an oil port is to completely remove it from the RV and taking the motor itself apart to reveal the bearings. And one of the reasons I think the manufacturers removed the oil ports is obvious: RV owners like myself who rely on these kind of motors to run their AC units but cannot easily re-oil them mean those motors will burn out much quicker than if the manufacturers provided the critical oil ports and will need replacing with another motor. And that means the motor manufacturers are making a ton more money by selling these motors which they know WILL FAIL without the necessary re-oiling. The official term is "planned obsolescence." Thanks for your comment.

If they have sleeve bearings, they are probably phosphor-bronz. These are supposed to be self lubricating!

If someone could figure that out, that would be a game changer! And if you happen to be the one to figure this out, could you let us know with another comment on how you did it? Even better, make a video of it because many people would be helped by that. Thanks for the comment.

@@productandequipmentreviews7386 might could take torn apart motor to a bearing store. would be my only guess. May try with mine. Going to replace one and repair one for a spare. Will let you know the outcome

@@markteel8346 Mark, I did a little research prior to your comment; a Japanese company used to make these motors for RVs with sealed ball bearings in them. They were more expensive, but I certainly would've purchased one of them because I believe they had the oil ports also in them. Unfortunately, these motors are no longer made by this particular motor manufacturer in Japan. I don't see why if you took your existing motor to a bearing shop and they remove the end caps, why they could not press or insert or in someway replace those cheap sleeve bearings with a ball bearing. Again, your comment is so interesting and I hope you explore this idea and let me know. Thanks again.

Someone just posted a new comment where they did exactly what you asked about: they replaced the sleeve bearings with ball bearings. He has a home machine shop and was able to do the work himself.

@@productandequipmentreviews7386 Did he post a video?

If you have to replace the motor, you can find them on Amazon, and have them shipped to you, which is what I did. They keep going up in price, and the last time I bought one of these motors, they were about $110 or so. I'm sure they've gone up in price since.

@@productandequipmentreviews7386 alright thanks for letting me know