Hi I’m not sure many people would watch 2.5 hours of a motor rebuild tho. May time lapse one but it takes a while to set up the camera and then put all the footage back together with the explanations in between ! Cheers
You are amazing man! This is super investigative work on Zoes that we don't really see elsewhere. So happy to see these videos always👍 Okay but let's think about the bearings, This rust on the surface of the bearing looks so much like pitting from electric current damage🤔Now it looks very likely that electric currents are contributing to the bearing failures on these motors. It is common on variable drive AC motors. If that is the case, when you open the bearings and cut them open, you may see grease is "burned" dark and there can be fluting patterns on raceways, or matted surfaces. When is gets worse, bearing balls also can get damaged and bigger pieces will get off, these damages will start generating heat. It is so weird how little amount of hours are on this bearings, and they fail already. I started thinking if it is possible that currents are induced in the motor shaft during charging too because Zoe motor is a charger inductor...but this would be crazy.
Hi thank you! Glad you are enjoying the videos, I’ve been amazed by the response I’ve had. From chatting to a few people it has been mentioned that the cause could be discharge from the rotor to the case. The Nissan Leaf has a magnetised rotor and interestingly has a single carbon brush on the rotor to make sure it is at the same potential as the case so that there is no discharge through the bearings. The Zoe motor of course only has the two brushes required for rotor excitation. One of the reasons I favour fitting metal shielded bearings is because this gives another path for discharge rather than through the bearings and they are still reasonably well sealed from any dust or moisture. Need to do more analysis on old failed bearings (I’ve got plenty 😆) but of course the main push is to get the cars fixed tho I like learning how stuff works and why it fails so I will do that investigation one day! Cheers.
@@garycevrepairsI think the quality of the motor housing might be an issue. It seems to be just diecast aluminium rather than a more corrosion resistant alloy. I'm wondering if the corrosion between the mating surfaces is causing a slight angular deviation between the spindle and the housing which contains the bearing receiver - it wouldn't take much, given the speed and torque the motor develops to destroy the bearing. I think the electrical arcing theory is also a good one.
As an irony the "permanent" magnet "brushless" motors aren't either. So Zoe may be the only car carrying its own real charger. But Renault patented the Cameleon and the rest of the world went DC charging (ie external) There's only so much a smack of grease can do for lifetime reliability; another issue is two separate shafts, which leads to misalignment and splines issues. Solvable with some modifications
@@garycevrepairs I'm no engineer but the thought occurred to me that giving that we don't see early bearing failures in the leaf motors and the limiting factor seems to be this additional brush, could it be worth doing Renault's dirty work and testing the longevity of a diy modification to bring it in line with Nissan's? Maybe Renault's thinking was that with the design of the Zoe falling in a period when they had a captive market (Zoe demographic would have been staunch EVangelist trailblazers) and limited competition they could design this obsolescence in...
if the motor coil windings are being used during charging and it is for this reason that the Zoe Chameleon charger does the ground fault tests, could it be linked to this?
Bearing manufacturers like skf publish an interesting set of bearing failure pictures. Also vibration analysis technology is so good that it will identify failure modes.overheat is sometimes a problem as it can reduce the temper of the bearing mounting surfaces
Interesting thanks. I will see if my grinder can cut through the outer race on a failed bearing so I can get the ball bearings out and see what they look like. Cheers
Utterly unnecessary. Just pry open the ball cage then you can bring it to bits by hands alone (you'd only be reversing once again... the assembly process)
I’ve tried, albeit with limited time, they are quite small bearings and will not open fully with usual percussive methods. I got the shield off but the cage is also metal and it’s pretty tight in there. Cheers
If it's made from two riveted/spot welded sides, maybe start by drilling those points apart. Those I opened came out fairly easily with some pliers or screwdrivers.
Hello , Did you do a earth leakage test on the windings and the rotor after you had re assembled the motor ? Also , just a suggestion, turning the motor vertical, make a lifting eye to fit on the brush end of the rotor and lift it out vertically with a light weight gantry. just a suggestion.
Amazing videos! Quick one - is it normal to feel vibrations through the steering wheel when the compressor is running? Noticeable when stationary and mostly during winter or high temps in summer? It's not violent or anything but very noticeable. Hopefully it's normal 🤞
Hi yes the compressor can vibrate quite a bit which you feel through the steering wheel. The ac compressor is a bit undersized for the system, it’s a heat pump and dual ac system with the battery cooling loop. If it’s making a metallic noise/grinding then that could be a sign of low gas but a fair bit of vibration is normal. If concerned get the gas level checked. Cheers
Thinking about the way the Zoe uses the electromagnet in place of a neodymium magnet did make me wonder if that had something to do with the short lifetimes... I also wonder how much of an effect a leadfooted vs featherfoot driving style makes?
It’s interesting, the previous Zoe motor I rebuilt was an R90 variant so a bit lower power and made it to 116k before needing a rebuild whereas this one is 70 something k and is an R110 variant so more powerful…
To smooth slip rings with very small grooving really you want a diamond file and then some jeweller's rouge before final clean. Diamond files are not expensive. The "official" way is to turn the rings in a lathe but that assumes you have a lathe.
Hi the bearing specs, make etc are detailed in a member video. Video membership to my channel is £1.99/m, some information takes a lot of time/investigating/buying access to systems and collating to find out so it can’t really just be given away but I’ve made the membership as cheap as possible and will keep adding member videos. Thanks. ua-cam.com/video/2pCuG9Fb0zo/v-deo.html
Really you installed the bearings with metal sheilds and not rubber. I''ll bet you didn't pack the bearings with an appropriate anount and grade of geases. Relying just on the petrolum jelly the ship the bearings with is asking for falure. What you're calling shims in the stator and the rotor are electrically called laminations made from special high silica steel specifically to minimise heating of the iron circuit due to induced eddy currents. The terminal/slip ring end shield should have been poped into an oven to heat it up to 80-90C and it would have slipped on easyly with out the possibility af damaging the bearing dual to axial load.
Rubber shields limit the rpm to below what this motor needs, the original bearings are custom made for Renault and not available. The bearing supplier says they are packed with grease ready for use. Thanks.
I’ve not taken many different motors apart as I’ve been concentrating on these Zoe ones so I don’t have many to compare but I can’t see it would have added much cost to have slightly bigger bearings !
It would be interesting to see how the rotor performs if you could get it dynamically balanced , and see if if ultrasonics or as somebody has said ,mickey mouse grease on the bearings thats killing the bearings.talking of mickey mouse those bearings, who do they buy them from ? Toys Are Us ?? !! If youve got a tech guy or shop to check them out maybe they can steer you in the diection of the corect bearing to use . I mean 50,000 K thats nothing .And lets face it if you couldnt do it yourself !!!! You would have to sell your house to repair it at the dealers .
Hi the old bearings are from NTN. I have a feeling it’s not that they are bad bearings but they are a bad fit for the motor - not physical fit but the bearing characteristics vs use case.
What sort of mileage are these bearings failing at folks? They look far too underrated & small to me with all that torque % immense RPM they are subject too. Typical French engineering ⚠️
Be nice to see you do the work
Hi I’m not sure many people would watch 2.5 hours of a motor rebuild tho. May time lapse one but it takes a while to set up the camera and then put all the footage back together with the explanations in between ! Cheers
You are amazing man! This is super investigative work on Zoes that we don't really see elsewhere. So happy to see these videos always👍 Okay but let's think about the bearings, This rust on the surface of the bearing looks so much like pitting from electric current damage🤔Now it looks very likely that electric currents are contributing to the bearing failures on these motors. It is common on variable drive AC motors. If that is the case, when you open the bearings and cut them open, you may see grease is "burned" dark and there can be fluting patterns on raceways, or matted surfaces. When is gets worse, bearing balls also can get damaged and bigger pieces will get off, these damages will start generating heat. It is so weird how little amount of hours are on this bearings, and they fail already. I started thinking if it is possible that currents are induced in the motor shaft during charging too because Zoe motor is a charger inductor...but this would be crazy.
Hi thank you! Glad you are enjoying the videos, I’ve been amazed by the response I’ve had. From chatting to a few people it has been mentioned that the cause could be discharge from the rotor to the case. The Nissan Leaf has a magnetised rotor and interestingly has a single carbon brush on the rotor to make sure it is at the same potential as the case so that there is no discharge through the bearings. The Zoe motor of course only has the two brushes required for rotor excitation. One of the reasons I favour fitting metal shielded bearings is because this gives another path for discharge rather than through the bearings and they are still reasonably well sealed from any dust or moisture. Need to do more analysis on old failed bearings (I’ve got plenty 😆) but of course the main push is to get the cars fixed tho I like learning how stuff works and why it fails so I will do that investigation one day! Cheers.
@@garycevrepairsI think the quality of the motor housing might be an issue. It seems to be just diecast aluminium rather than a more corrosion resistant alloy. I'm wondering if the corrosion between the mating surfaces is causing a slight angular deviation between the spindle and the housing which contains the bearing receiver - it wouldn't take much, given the speed and torque the motor develops to destroy the bearing. I think the electrical arcing theory is also a good one.
As an irony the "permanent" magnet "brushless" motors aren't either. So Zoe may be the only car carrying its own real charger. But Renault patented the Cameleon and the rest of the world went DC charging (ie external)
There's only so much a smack of grease can do for lifetime reliability; another issue is two separate shafts, which leads to misalignment and splines issues. Solvable with some modifications
@@garycevrepairs I'm no engineer but the thought occurred to me that giving that we don't see early bearing failures in the leaf motors and the limiting factor seems to be this additional brush, could it be worth doing Renault's dirty work and testing the longevity of a diy modification to bring it in line with Nissan's? Maybe Renault's thinking was that with the design of the Zoe falling in a period when they had a captive market (Zoe demographic would have been staunch EVangelist trailblazers) and limited competition they could design this obsolescence in...
if the motor coil windings are being used during charging and it is for this reason that the Zoe Chameleon charger does the ground fault tests, could it be linked to this?
Great video , cheers 🍻 👏
Thanks 👍
Bearing manufacturers like skf publish an interesting set of bearing failure pictures. Also vibration analysis technology is so good that it will identify failure modes.overheat is sometimes a problem as it can reduce the temper of the bearing mounting surfaces
Interesting thanks. I will see if my grinder can cut through the outer race on a failed bearing so I can get the ball bearings out and see what they look like. Cheers
Utterly unnecessary. Just pry open the ball cage then you can bring it to bits by hands alone (you'd only be reversing once again... the assembly process)
I’ve tried, albeit with limited time, they are quite small bearings and will not open fully with usual percussive methods. I got the shield off but the cage is also metal and it’s pretty tight in there. Cheers
If it's made from two riveted/spot welded sides, maybe start by drilling those points apart. Those I opened came out fairly easily with some pliers or screwdrivers.
Hello , Did you do a earth leakage test on the windings and the rotor after you had re assembled the motor ?
Also , just a suggestion, turning the motor vertical, make a lifting eye to fit on the brush end of the rotor and lift it out vertically with a light weight gantry. just a suggestion.
Amazing videos! Quick one - is it normal to feel vibrations through the steering wheel when the compressor is running? Noticeable when stationary and mostly during winter or high temps in summer? It's not violent or anything but very noticeable. Hopefully it's normal 🤞
Hi yes the compressor can vibrate quite a bit which you feel through the steering wheel. The ac compressor is a bit undersized for the system, it’s a heat pump and dual ac system with the battery cooling loop. If it’s making a metallic noise/grinding then that could be a sign of low gas but a fair bit of vibration is normal. If concerned get the gas level checked. Cheers
Thinking about the way the Zoe uses the electromagnet in place of a neodymium magnet did make me wonder if that had something to do with the short lifetimes... I also wonder how much of an effect a leadfooted vs featherfoot driving style makes?
It’s interesting, the previous Zoe motor I rebuilt was an R90 variant so a bit lower power and made it to 116k before needing a rebuild whereas this one is 70 something k and is an R110 variant so more powerful…
@@garycevrepairs My wife's R90 2016 has done 145k miles and still going strong. She drives slowly and carefully. Have changed clim compressor.
Super interesting 👍
How long did that take you roughly?
Hi probably about 2.5 hours, I prefer to take my time and do it properly. It takes long enough to fit, you don’t want to have to take it out again 😆
To smooth slip rings with very small grooving really you want a diamond file and then some jeweller's rouge before final clean. Diamond files are not expensive. The "official" way is to turn the rings in a lathe but that assumes you have a lathe.
Interesting info, thanks!
Do you know the manufacturer of these bearings
Hi the bearing specs, make etc are detailed in a member video. Video membership to my channel is £1.99/m, some information takes a lot of time/investigating/buying access to systems and collating to find out so it can’t really just be given away but I’ve made the membership as cheap as possible and will keep adding member videos. Thanks.
ua-cam.com/video/2pCuG9Fb0zo/v-deo.html
Really you installed the bearings with metal sheilds and not rubber. I''ll bet you didn't pack the bearings with an appropriate anount and grade of geases. Relying just on the petrolum jelly the ship the bearings with is asking for falure.
What you're calling shims in the stator and the rotor are electrically called laminations made from special high silica steel specifically to minimise heating of the iron circuit due to induced eddy currents.
The terminal/slip ring end shield should have been poped into an oven to heat it up to 80-90C and it would have slipped on easyly with out the possibility af damaging the bearing dual to axial load.
Rubber shields limit the rpm to below what this motor needs, the original bearings are custom made for Renault and not available. The bearing supplier says they are packed with grease ready for use. Thanks.
Richard, I think you are right. I can't see those shielded bearings lasting 6 months.
I’ve had them running in cars longer than that!
Interesting video- what mileage had the car achieved please?
Hi 70 something thousand. Cheers
Lools like they tried to save a few pence and used bearing way way to small and really not fit for purpose
I’ve not taken many different motors apart as I’ve been concentrating on these Zoe ones so I don’t have many to compare but I can’t see it would have added much cost to have slightly bigger bearings !
Pretty sure they knew exactly what they were doing. There's even an expression coined fot that: planned obsolescence
It would be interesting to see how the rotor performs if you could get it dynamically balanced , and see if if ultrasonics or as somebody has said ,mickey mouse grease on the bearings thats killing the bearings.talking of mickey mouse those bearings, who do they buy them from ? Toys Are Us ?? !! If youve got a tech guy or shop to check them out maybe they can steer you in the diection of the corect bearing to use . I mean 50,000 K thats nothing .And lets face it if you couldnt do it yourself !!!! You would have to sell your house to repair it at the dealers .
Hi the old bearings are from NTN. I have a feeling it’s not that they are bad bearings but they are a bad fit for the motor - not physical fit but the bearing characteristics vs use case.
What sort of mileage are these bearings failing at folks?
They look far too underrated & small to me with all that torque % immense RPM they are subject too.
Typical French engineering ⚠️
I’ve seen them fail at 50k but also well over 100k, suspect there is another issue at play than just the mechanical wear. Cheers
If you increase the size of the bearing, it would struggle even more because of the high rpm
@rangleri I'd like to think it's more of a case of built in obsolescence.
I'll stick to my M47 engine on 330k still going strong and 50mpg