Well after 6000 miles in the past 4 1/2 months, the magic smoke started coming out of my ADC 8 inch motor yesterday. After detecting the distinctive odor of hot insulation, I pulled over to the side of the road and lifted the hood. A thin stream of light blue smoke wisped out of the motor (there goes my ZEV status!). Prior to this occurrence there was no unusual current draw, the amp meter had shown less than 100 A draw for the previous 20 minutes (long level driving area). As I was only about a mile from home I gently drove the rest of the way home hearing something sounding like scraping or sparking from the motor when ever I'd put more than 20 A or so into the motor. When I got home, the motor was extremely hot (about as hot as an exhaust manifold on a ICE). After dark, I ran the motor with no load and saw small sparks inside the motor casing.
My questions: Is this a brush replacement call, I know the brushes need replacing occasionally but is the the signal? Is it normal to see small sparks when looking in the vent holes on an ADC 8 inch? What do you think needs to be done, Am I looking at having the motor rebuilt or does it just need new bushes? Thanks for your help Lynn Adams, 92 e Civic 88/miles per day 6000 miles, 160 cycles on the 8VGC as of yesterday, batteries working great, motor having problems... Thanks for you help
