# Replaced treadmill motor bearings



## mcdanlj (Feb 17, 2019)

I replaced failing treadmill motor bearings on a motor that I am thinking of using for a 2"x72 belt grinder. 3HP ought to be enough. There's a bit of backstory that I didn't get into in the blog post. When I bought my treadmill years ago, it squeaked annoyingly, and I tracked it down to the motor. Johnson Health, after a short support conversation, quickly sent me a new motor and didn't even want the old one back; I guess they weren't going to re-use it, so why pay shipping two ways when they could pay for shipping only one way? I replaced the motor, which fixed the squeaking, and told folks how happy I was with my support experience.

When I trashed bearings on the replacement motor by over-tightening the new belt (oops), I tried swapping in the old motor on the theory that squeaking was better than crunchy bearing noises, then discovered that I really wasn't over-reacting in the first place. But now I have learned more, and know that the squeaking was _also_ bad bearings! So I took apart the motor with the bearings I had trashed, measured the bearings, and ordered _two_ sets of replacement bearings. After successfully fixing the treadmill by putting in the motor with the replaced bearings, I took pictures while replacing the bearings in the original motor in order to post photos to help the next person.

And now, when I build a 2x72" belt grinder, I'll have a 3HP 90V DC motor to run it. That should be enough!


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## bretthl (Feb 17, 2019)

Linux!


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## mcdanlj (Feb 17, 2019)

bretthl said:


> Linux!



Well, yes. Been doing that since a few hours after Linus first announced his new toy project. (I didn't sleep that night, I spent it reading kernel source code.) I guess the connection to this site is that I have enjoyed being part of communities in which people gladly share knowledge and work to help each other.


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## bretthl (Feb 17, 2019)

Cool.  I've been solely Ubuntu since 6.XX.  I'm just a user but I could not go back to Windows.  Keep us up dated on the grinder build.  That should be a good shop addition.


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## mcdanlj (Feb 17, 2019)

It will be a while before I start; a few other projects are coming first. My shop has been lonely the past month or so as I've been trying to help rescue some makers and their data from the impending google+ shutdown. (This experience has validated having a separate forum like this that isn't at the mercy of a big company with a short attention span, FWIW.)


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