Sympoms of a dirty motor

[teckersley]

Hey guys. I did a search here for cleaning dirty motors but I really couldn't find a ton of information. I recently started having issues with my cart. ITs a precedent with an EMP motor and Alltrax DCX500IG. After spending some time with a very helpful person at alltrax, he felt the motor needed to be cleaned and brushes check. I took the motor off the cart and opened it up. Man there sure what a lot of black on the inside. I was kind of surprised with how little I have used it since new but I blew all of the soot off and cleaned it good with brake cleaner. It looks much better now. From your experience, what are the symptoms of a dirty motor and how often should they normally be cleaned. The brushed seemed to have plenty of the "block" left and nothing really looked abnormal.

I ordered a new motor from scottyb anyway since I have stretched the cart and added a rear seat so I needed more torque. unfortunately, I have already mapped the controller for the new motor so I cant really just reinstall it and see if that was the issue.

thanks for the input

[stang99x]

I've seen motors that haven't been removed since they were new and are 20 years old that have never been cleaned. I've also removed many motors and seen how nasty they get.....though I've not seen many that "had to" be removed and cleaned to function properly. Especially if the motor was a replacement on a Precedent....meaning it cannot be older than 2004 to begin with. I have seen smaller motors on handheld devices that got dirty and wouldn't run so I can't say it isn't possible.

[Muddog]

The symptoms of a dirty motor are a heavy black carbon deposit on the armature and the brushes. This is usually caused by lack of current to motor or weak brush springs
As long as an electric motor is getting the proper power it will last a long time.
I have motors that are 50+ years old and I have never had to clean one.
I seen motors that looked 50 years old , but were days old, because bad connections would not allow enough current to the motor. I've also seen cheap china motors burn out from weak brush springs not allowing good contact to the armature
Golf cart motors are in the dirt ,so to say. They're going to look dirty on the outside. But if you are seeing a lot of black carbon dust, that is likely coming from the brushes. If that is the case then I would check cables and connects.
Make sure all cable and connects are right, tight and clean before installing new motor or you could see the same thing. Muddog