One of the things I did this weekend was tear the motor apart. It did have a bad bearing. Actually, the retaining clip for one of the bearing seals was just sitting on top of the bearing, not attached. That little clip is exactly what destroyed the Hacker that this motor replaced. Anyway, after replacing the bearing, I'm still getting the noise. It's a Compass motor and, I have to say, I'm getting great service from Mike Janakowski at Prostar hobbies. When I first started running that motor a couple of weeks ago, I was seeing up to around 5600 watts. The last 10 flights, it was only hitting about 4600, and I was flying the same as before. On Friday, I had sent him an email and told him I thought my motor was making a strange noise. After tearing it down the other night and finding that the motor sounded smooth, I sent him another email and told him I didn't think it was the motor, after all. He sent me a reply and told me he wanted to replace it, anyway, because based on the data it seems that it does have an issue. It's so nice dealing with guys like Mike and Matt!
Kevin, I did lube the thrust bearings with Boto lube. I'm not sure what they were lubed with before. When I first got the helicopter I just pulled the bearings out of the grips and checked that the thrust bearings were greased and then put them back together.
Anthony, the pinion does actually kind of look like crap and I had wondered if that was my problem but then kind of dismissed it. I was thinking of going to a 12T pinion, anyway, because I want to run a little lower head speed. I think I'm going to go ahead and order one of the hardened pinions.
Thanks for all the replies guys!
