On Wed, 4 Mar 2015 12:31:45 -0500, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:


"micky" wrote in message
.. .
The only related story I have is about my '95 Chrysler LeBaron
convertible. or maybe the '88 or '84. The car was over 14 years
old and often I would have to smack the top motor/pump with a wrench to
make the top go up or down. (I was lucky to think of hitting it. I
probably learned that from watching people on pinball machines or maybe
old movies where they always hit something that doesn't work.)

Anyhow, this worked for almost a year, and I put the top up and down a
lot, each day, often two or three times in a day ** But I had to hit
the motor more and more times towards the end. I started by hittting
it twice, but was up to 10 or 20 times and figured I'd better do
something before I coudlnt' get the top up at all.


Hitting something is always the first choice in a repair job. (grin).

LOL

Knowing where and how to hit is where the money is. At work there are lots
of small motors with brushes and sometimes the carbon will build up jamming
the brush and the spring can not push the brush down as it wears out.
Sometimes a good hit will keep the motor running long enough to last to the
next planned shutdown.

Good to hear about this.

To elaborate: Actually any carbon dust had falled away and my brushes
weren't hung up on anything, except maybe the usual friction of a smooth
piece of metal against a smooth brush. But they were just so short,
the spring wasn't long enough to really push them against the
commutator. I think when I hit the motor, towards the end they just
landed almost at random, and sometimes both were touching the
commutator. I might have stretched the spring out more,
and that probably would have worked too, but the spring wire was so
thin, instead I used the ball of foil push the spring up 1/2" closer to
the armature, to make up for the last half inch of brush that had worn
away. That seemed better.