Help with old Wagner Electric Corporation AC 1/4 motor. "Restoration"

I have currently dug my fathers 70 year old band saw out the old shed. Im trying to give it a complete restoration. I remember using this thing all the way back to my early youth. It needs some TLC but i beleive it will turn out very nice.

The motor used to run the band saw is an old Wagner AC 110/220 1 phase (induction?) motor. It has four large brushes inside that engage at startup and release after it spins up. This is the most i have been able to find out about this thing. I cannot find any information online about this motor.

If anyone out there can share some knowledge with me on a couple things i would greatly appreciate it.
A few questions.

How would i go about changing the Bushings/Sleeves? not sure what to call them, it's definitely not bearings. Looks to be a bronze sleeve with an oil channel and oil sponge cutout on the top of the sleeve. And if i can change them, where would i find replacements? i can't even find anything when i try to look up the model number or motor

There is a pulsing when the motor is up to speed and sounds a little rough, although seems to have plenty of life and spins right up, just rough while spinning. Im assuming this is due to worn out bushings. Also the shaft has about 3/4 play in and out in regards to the housing of the motor. I can push it in and out towards the housing of the motor. I also contribute this to worn out bushings/sleeves but i do not know?

Can the speed of this motor be controlled with a controller? I thought i read somewhere when i was trying to find info about this motor, that if it's an ac motor with brushes you can safely control the speed the of the motor with a controller as long as you don't run it too looowwww.

On one side of the motor inside the bell, there is a couple wires attached from the central housing to a little setup with contacts. Anyone know what this is? I ask because when taking it apart to clean it, i accidentally broke the head off the allen screw thinking it was the one holding it to the inside of the outer bell housing. (turns out it was the other screw that held it to the housing.) although the head of the allen screw crumbled away with the slightest pressure, whatever it's holding together has'nt moved or caused any problems yet so im ignoring it for now.

I really want to get this motor running smooth again, electrically it seems very sound. Its just balance or bushings that causing all the rough running now.

I welcome any and all info anyone can provide me with. I know absolutely nothing about this motor, and cannot find any info on it. I would really like to change these bushings/sleeves or perhaps there's a way to shim or smooth them? I have taken armetures out of small airsoft motors and balanced them, i assume it might be the same for a big motor right?

Thanks in advance for anyone willing to stop and share some info.

Wagner Electric Corporation
Alternating Current Motor
TYPE: RA
FRAME: 65X
MOD: C2141 K1635
HP: 1/4
RPM: 1725
PH: 1
CYCLES: 60
110 VOLTS 4 AMP
220 VOLTS 2 AMP
RATING: CONT
C: 40
NO: 3X
Code: SK
Protector: 2P33

All the info i could decipher from the plate

First, the bearings in the endbells are oilite bronze, and highly unlikely to be the problem.

Given your description of the storage situation I'd first suspect rust.
Gently diasssemble the motor and sand the rust off the rotor and stator faces, (PAY ATTENTION TO THE END SHIMS, AND PUT THEM BACK IN THE SAME NUMBER ON EACH END). coat both with a thin layer of lanolin.

To check the bearings you need to reassemble the motor after rust is removed, and check for sideplay between shaft & Bearing. They have a wee bit of chuck coming from the factory and will run a long time before they egg out.

IF you do need to replace the bearings they shouldn't be hard to find, possibly McMaster.

Will do, i was scared to mess around to much inside the motor, i pretty much just brushed the dirt and dust out, blew it out with some air. Re-oiled the bearings and put back together. there was a few metal rings that seemed to be crushed almost into a bowl shape. they were very very thin washers just before the bearing on one end. I believe it was like 6 small this washers and one black material washer maybe 1/16 or an 1/8 thick. I don't think there was any washers on the other side.

Do you think the play in the shaft is due to missing end shims, and where could i purchase replacements or extras? How much in and out play should there be on the shaft?

There is pretty much no play in the shaft up and down or front to back just in and out of the housing about a half inch. What order do the end shims go? I tried to pay attention to oreintation when i cleaned it, but ended up a two day project before i got it back together.

It still has a bit of vibration when running.

I will disassemble and take plenty of pictures tomorrow of the inside. I will gently sand the rotor and stator faces. How easy do i need to be with sanding these?

thank you for your reply

You have an old repulsion induction motor. They worked very well for starting high inertia loads.

You first need to answer the question why do I want to restore the motor for yourself. Unless there is a really important reason, I would just replace it. You will be money and effort ahead.

This vintage of motor may require a substantial amount of work and dollars to restore depending on the condition of the motor.

Those are sleeve bearings. You will more than likely need to make new ones if the motor actually needs them. If the bearings have a lot of play, they will need to be replaced however this also means that it is likely that the bearing wear is from lack of lubrication which means that the motor armature shaft will also need to be re-ground requiring you to make new bearings that are over sized.

Being that these are sleeve bearings, you should also plan on line boring the bearings in the motor frame. More dollars and effort.

There is also the issue of the armature shaft end play which suggests other wear issues that need to be repaired.

Then you have the issue of the winding condition. The motor runs now but what happens if a short time after you address the mechanical issues, the magic smoke escapes? You need to at a minimum plan on a winding re-bake and probably replacing the internal wires to the windings.

The starting commutator should also be gone through and possibly new brushes installed.

Repulsion-inductance and inductance motors that are single phase do not like motor speed controllers in that they both utilize a starting switch system that is centrifugally activated. Speeds close to or below the switching speed will cause the switch to engage the starting windings.

You have mentioned somethings in your initial post that tell me that you really don't have a good handle on what you are considering doing. This reason alone should make you cautious of taking on a project like this.

I see a lot of money and effort going into an antique that can easily be replaced with an off the shelf commodity motor for a fraction of the cost of re-conditioning.

The broken item is probably the "protector". That protector would be a combined current and temperature sensor, if the motor gets too hot, or current heats the protector too much, it shuts off the motor. No clue where you can get a replacement, if it is needed.

The motor sounds like a repulsion start-induction run type motor. Those short out the "commutator" when the motor has started. Does that one do it? Or does it just lift the brushes?.

bearings are good unless they have side play. Not sure what your "3/4 play" means. Maybe you can specify the units, and the direction, so that we know what you are describing.

Pulsing can be from many causes. Friction, yes, possibly worn bearing bronzes, which are not that rare when there is a belted application, the belt direction is where the play will be.

The unit probably cannot be effectively controlled speed-wise. The brushes should, as I red your description, be out of it when it is running, so it runs as an induction motor. But the start is where the problem will be. That type does not work with any usual VFDs.

If there is a slot in the bearings, is there a wick for them, or is there maybe a ring there? Ring oiled bearings were not uncommon back when things were made to last, and not to need early replacement. I have a few, and not all are really old. The ring carries oil up from a reservoir. But ones with a wick also exist, made later.

It has an oil tube and sponge above the bearing. no side play, it has 1/2inch to 3/4 inch play in and out towards the motor. It does not have this play when running.

Yes i have no clue what im getting into. Im restoring the band saw and motor because it's been in my family forever. I feel the motor still has alot of life in it, and was trying to see if i could get it running smoother to be used.

On the inside it's actually in pretty good shape as far as the windings. Looks like it could take a coat of insulating thermal paint on the windings.

My absolute main goal is to get the band saw restored and running the smoothest i can get it. Although i have a small tolerance in smoothness if i can get the motor running good enough. But if i can't smooth it out a little i will pursue other avanue's.

So a side question here. what would be a good motor to use? I would really perfer a motor that i could control the speed on.

I really don't want to play with pulleys to get different speeds to cut metal and wood, or different speeds for different cuts or blades. So a variable speed motor would be ideal. As i stated before in regaurds to electric motors i don't have that much knowledge and even less on old motors.

This will be used on a 1950's Craftsman 12" Bandsaw. It's currently a 1/4 horse motor. But could probably jump up to a 1hp to keep from bogging down on heavy cuts.

I will try some more to tune this thing up before giving up on smoothing it out, but guess i should start exploring other avenue's.

Looking at the pics it reminds me of a good old furnace blower motor somebody stuck on their band saw and it worked. Replacements used to cost $17 at Sid Harvey, and truthfully they weren't all that much of a motor when they were made, but the dam things worked.

End play as well makes me think furnace motor. The belt pretty much kept the rotor where it belonged, and as long as the rotor was more or less inside the stator they started & ran.
It's a very forgiving machine.