Shopsmith Forums

Hi,
I’m new here. I’ve been trying to find out what is in the motor by the bushing in the photos. I tried the Facebook group,but no one was able to give me a firm answer. I can’t tell if it’s grease with bits of wood or if it’s remnants of a felt pad with 20 weight oil. I’ve been told both and I’ve been told to just leave it as it is. Everything is working fine,I just had to replace the capacitor. Thanks in advance fir any help.

Similar(identical) to what I have encountered with a power station emerson motor. I would be inclined to refer to it as cotton wadding.

That said, I would pack some cotton into the current voids and add oil.

JPG, is that what you think is in there now? I’ve talked to 3 different repair people. One says to just leave it the way it is. Another says he’s never seen oil in the units he’s repaired and replaces these with 2RS bearings. The 3rd said he’s used 20 weight oil, but didn’t say with what type of seal (?). Another person also said he replaces them with a rubber sealed bearing. The first one is the only one I know for sure is familiar with this motor. Until the capacitor failed, it’s been working this way for over 30 years, so I don’t think I’ll be in trouble leaving it the way it is for now, I’d just like to know exactly what it is; felt, cotton, grease, oil or something else. My neighbor has a 500 and his has grease.

I've only had one Emerson headstock motor apart and it had front and rear ball bearings. That approach is common to all earlier non-Emerson motors as far as I know. There are other threads on the Emerson with rear bushing, but I didn't see a definitive answer. I suggest this thread: (viewtopic.php?t=14238). The late Bill Mayo, who is highly respected here, weighed in with his approach to grease the bushing and ignore what appears to be an oil reservoir for the bushing. OTOH I would think an electric motor shop would be likely to replace the packing and fill with 20 weight. IIWM my first step would be to investigate the possibility you mentioned of replacing with an appropriate sized 2RS ball bearing.

The Shopsmith conventional headstock has a designed airflow path. Inspection of the fan sheave shows that most of the air that moves through the headstock also goes through the motor and exhausts out the bottom below the fan sheave. The air tends to be pretty dirty, mostly due to saw dust which does not mix well with lubricants. Seems to me that a sealed bearing is preferable in this application. I have not heard of an Emerson failure attributed to the bushing, although that is not the case for Power Stations which unfortunately use two bushings and zero ball bearings.

- David

Thanks for the info David.