fr4ie2nd0ly wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 3:15 am
Still stuck on the chopper cap not wanting to come off the housing. It appears the chopper itself is seized, won't turn when I poke at it with a screwdriver. Not sure if that has anything to do with the cap not coming off
What are you calling the "chopper housing", do you mean the steel tube, or the aluminum chopper casting that holds the brushes and field coils inside? The problem here is that there are (usually) three different metals sandwiched here: steel housing, aluminum motor frame, bronze stator cap. Aluminum in particular oxidizes to the dreaded "white rust", which can grow around bolts and edges of parts and bind things together with incredible resilience. But... the three metals also have very different thermal expansion rates, which means if you heat the thing with a torch, the parts will expand to different diameters and very possibly pop apart for you. Obviously you need all the fasteners out before you apply any heat. Also, no oil or solvent is likely to help much if the cause is oxidation, but if you've already tried this, heating is going to make LOTS of smoke, so gotta work outdoors if you aren't already.
Also, the "dowels" Chicagosiren-hunters mentioned are actually taper pins used to align the stator with the motor frame, and as such can only be tapped out from underneath. If you tap them from the top, you wedge them in even tighter and risk cracking the aluminum casting if you really overdo it.