Leaderboard

This is a relatively easy DIY that may save a failing secondary air injection motor, commonly referred to as the SAI. Removal and installation is easy and covered many times elsewhere, so I wont repeat it. I would only do this repair if I heard the tell-tale screech/squeal on SAI start-up. The noise is indicating the SAI has a problem anyway, whether its the bearings or fan discs, the unit may need service soon. The noise could be from the sealed bearings or fan discs. After SAI removal, separate the mounting bracket from the SAI assembly. Remove retaining clips from assembly case. You see the motor shaft and fan discs retaining nut. Don’t remove the snap ring. Just remove the nut. Remove all fan discs and spacers, carefully noting the order and position of each piece. I usually stack or lay the pieces in order so I don’t forget. You may want to photograph or make notes. You should now see only the motor left in the motor case. Remove the two retaining screws. Replace the retaining nut on the motor shaft and carefully secure in a vise. Gently pull the motor case from the motor. You will see that it is just a basic rotor/stator electric motor. You can now see the sealed bearings on each end of the electric motor. The shaft end and support end. Carefully remove the seal from the SHAFT END sealed bearing. I used a jewelers flat blade screw driver to remove the seal. Just be gentle with it and it wont break. You can now see the exposed caged ball bearings. Mine were dry. I carefully packed the bearings with a lite quality grease while rotating the shaft. I then replaced the seal and verified it was seated. The seal cant come out later because a spacer rides against it. Then look at the support end sealed bearing. You will not be able to remove the seal but you can carefully separate it enough to “inject” grease into the bearing. You can use a needle-tip adapter on your grease gun or a large gauge syringe (18g or 20g) with lite grease. I even put a little extra grease on the support end of the shaft because it is isolated in the closed housing end. Verify the motor turns smoothly, reassemble, and install. You can test it prior to installation with a 12V DC source if you want to. Some miscellaneous notes: This will probably not help a seized sealed bearing(s). This is NOT a critical complicated engine part and is not hard to DIY if you take your time and carefully note the dis-assembly. I will run mine for awhile then take it apart again and see if my “extra” grease attracted more dust or dirt. If my bearings would have been ruined, I still would not have trashed the unit. I would have rebuilt the electric motor itself, replacing the brushes and bearings which is much harder than the DIY.