Does anyone know why Castle have started to glue there motor bearings in?!

Guess that comment is said with annoyance in my voice as I’ve just gone to upgrade my 1515 2200kv bearing to Boca oranges to find they are glued in.

Started shaft end first, please note I have done bearings changes before but this is my first attempt with a Castle motor.

Bearing felt tight and wouldn’t tap out so I applied some heat and out it popped, once removed you can see and feel the hard resin residue from where it’s been glued in.

Moved onto the endbell and again with wriggling a 5mm bar inside the bearing it wouldn't budge so again applied some heat but unlike the front this didn’t help.

Little bit of Googling later came up with the idea to pack the inside with grease and tap down with the 5mm bar I guess in essence to do a kind of hydraulic press from behind, well no luck there it just popped the metal seal off and now got a slight bulged on the reverse of the endbell

why oh why would they glue bearings in....

That bites that castle does this.

My best guess is to keep the bearing in place and not cause binding issues upon assembly and to keep the outer race from moving wearing out the seat which leads me to believe that there may be some tolerance issues on machining parts.

unfortunately it sounds like the end bell is bent and may have to get a new one.

In case of this end bell first, boil it for an hour, and lightly try and remove it, and if that don’t work, soak it in acetone for over 24 hours and try again.

I am rather surprised heat didn’t work on the end bell, it may require slightly more heat. Requiring heat resistant gloves as it is possible that the bearing was pressed in while hot.

Thanks for advice, fresh head this morning and it does appear I over reacted about the endbell, looks to just be a slight bulge on the opposing side to were I’ve tried to lever the bearing out by having a 5mm bar in the inner race.

Once or if I get the bearing out nothing a few tap with a wooden mallet shouldn’t sort.

No acetate at hand so soaked in WD-40 over night (long shot I know) and yeah that hasn’t released the glue.

Busy day ahead so I might see if I can grab some acetate and put it in soak, really do feel it’s the glue which I need to over come, as I failed to mention on the first bearing once free it could be pushed back relatively easily and so was the Boca I replaced it with.

In the oven at 150 for 15 mins and out it came with a few hard taps!

Was definitely glued in as I had to clean the residue up prior to installation of the Boca orange.

Awesome, nice to know that the oven worked. I baked and dried Electronics in ovens and stuff but mine only went down to 170f.

Since most motors are rated operation temp of 185f I’d be willing to say that the glue unsets at 200f

That’s guys.

the shaft end came out after dropping in boiling water for a min or so.

but they endbell bearing was having none of it! 10mins at 150 didn’t seem to work so just thought I’d give it a few more mins and low and behold it work.

I had found a metal cook try for cakes/doughnuts or whatever but upside down it had an opening just larger then the bearing so I was able to tap the endbell down on this and the bearing dropped out.

bit of a relief as getting another 1515 right now isn’t easy.

Yeah for some reason the combos are on backorder until mid to late July, motor itself October.

I considered getting a castle creations mamba monster x 25.2 volt with the 1515 motor. Still may get the combo sometime.