Symptom - Gearbox Noisy Lack of power - motor load lights on pod reading high.
On stripping the motor I found that the bearings on the motor armature had sheered off inside the gearbox.
I had to drill a 3.5mm hole in the end of the motor main gear so I could insert a punch and knock them out.
I had to replace the armature - I was going to see if I could weld the shaft back on, but an engineer at work said the welding would be hard and could not guarantee a vibration free repair (these are jet engine people) - so I bought another - cheers Karl.
So I took a look at the gearbox next - and found the gearbox had sustained light damage. The planetary gear ends had started to melt, and one of the pins that hold the gears in place had its hole widened and so dropped out.
I cleaned the Armature and the gearbox in an industrial degreaser and cleaned out the gear rod hole with acetone. I Araldite the pin back in place and left the glue to set. When this Nylon starts to melt it goes brittle so I scraped away the bad and made it good again.
I cleaned the armatures slip rings with ScotchBite and made it look good. Greased it up and put it back together and hoped all was well.
BEFOREAFTERBEFORE FITTINGAfter a few tests and a trip out with Mark and can safely say its performing as should , I was lucky to get away with this.
The only thing I can think of is an over tight drive belt caused this - So my advice is to only have it just tight enough to prevent slip - don’t ever give it a bit more to be on the safe side - this in a bad idea !