Motor bearings

After getting the lathe on the stand the vibrations seemed to become more pronounced, just the opposite from what I was hoping would happen.  I had initially thought that the belts had become out of round from sitting for so long, but replacing them with link belts only marginally improved the things.  

Having removed all the belts I was now able to run the motor separately, which revealed that the bearings were long since overdue to be replaced.  The following photos document the various components of the motor I disassembled in the process of replacing the original grease bearings with sealed bearings.

Westinghouse 1/2 hours electric motor photos

once everything was put back together I ran into a strange situation where the motor would make a pinging noise when freely spun by hand.  Disassembling the motor once again, I discovered a small piece of fabric electrical tape that was interfering with the cooling fan on the rotor, shown in the photo below,  My initial inclination was to remove the tape and paint the wire with an epoxy.  However I instead decided to trim the tape until it no longer interfered, since I wasn't sure of how hot the motor could get.

A piece of electrical tape which interfered with the rotor fan.