Pancake motor restoration

[Trevynd]

Decided It was time to tackle this project. First off, there is an awesome video from west coast classic cougar about this, and they also have a service to restore your old ones as well if you don’t feel comfortable enough to tackle it. 
 

I had 4 motors, one worked. The other better looking one had a damaged armature which you can see in pics. This would cause it to loose contact and intermittently stop working. 
 

I pulled apart the other two which were in far worse condition but was able to clean up the armature and put it in and the second one worked!

move on to the last one and it was super ugly but removed and cleaned brushes, had to replace the springs that keep them up against the armature (I used a good ol click pen spring, worked great) then cleaned contacts, brushes, armature, all the rust out with a wire brush and greased up and alive it came! So now I’ve got a working set and a back up.  I’m happy to help out if you have any questions but honestly that video is pure gold. 
 

 

[RC92234]

Bravo!

 

[Carolina_Mountain_Mustangs]

The pancake motor is a one of a kind I think. I have three cars with PW and you cannot find a NOS rear motor. The fronts are easy but not the rear. I will probably do a pair after some shows coming up on my 72 Q vert build. Going to add the PW to it.

 

[gfmach1]

hi guys, i see you mention about the pancake motor repair. I am restoring my 72 mach 1 and the armature in the rear pancake motor is partially destroyed with some of the conducting copper material broken and as such the motor in some points when turning loses contact and stops working. Any ideas on this one if repairable or where to find one ? Thanks fro your help! 

 

[Don C]

West Coast Classic Cougars has a video on refurbishing them.

 

[Kilgon]

Great job and a good info.  Will definitely help the net guy that tackles one.  They look in pretty bad shape.  Glad to see that you were able to get them running again.

 

[Trevynd]

hi guys, i see you mention about the pancake motor repair. I am restoring my 72 mach 1 and the armature in the rear pancake motor is partially destroyed with some of the conducting copper material broken and as such the motor in some points when turning loses contact and stops working. Any ideas on this one if repairable or where to find one ? Thanks fro your help! 

I had one that was damaged as well, I tried to solder it back together but it was still intermittent, so in the end, tho it looked ok overall the couple breaks in the copper made it not work as well. I’m not too sure If there is a source of just the armature or if you’ll have to just find another one and hope for the best. Oddly enough the two most corroded assemblies I had, had good copper armatures. 
 

But as mentioned west coast classic cougar is a great source of info and parts and worth hitting them up 

 

[altair51]

bonjour, avez vous une idée du prix de vente d'un pancake ? merci

 

[Steve McMahan]

Dovrai pubblicare le tue domande in inglese. Nessuno parla italiano su questo forum.

 

[altair51]

hello steve thanks your abswer, but my langage is french...
in english : hello, do you have any idea of the selling price of a pancake motor? thank you

 

[rackerm]

I had one that was damaged as well, I tried to solder it back together but it was still intermittent, so in the end, tho it looked ok overall the couple breaks in the copper made it not work as well. I’m not too sure If there is a source of just the armature or if you’ll have to just find another one and hope for the best. Oddly enough the two most corroded assemblies I had, had good copper armatures.


But as mentioned west coast classic cougar is a great source of info and parts and worth hitting them up

I've looked for replacement Armatures in the past and never found a compatible replacement. The breaks in the armature can be repaired in some cases. I repaired mine a few years ago. I also experimented with replacing the pancake motor with a Ford Explorer motor. It worked but required a few mods and a gear with a different number of teeth. In the end, I decided to scrap the idea after making the first one. But here is a picture of it at the bottom. Finally, there is a company, Nu Relic that is making Front and rear retrofit units... https://www.nu-relics.com/71-73-Mustang-Front-and-Rear-Regulators-p/87100-4.htm. I have not used their 71-73 units, but I used a set of front units in my 1970 Mustang and they work great and the company reps were very responsive when I had questions.

I also found a supplier for brushes that were close to the originals and worked.





Below is my window motor retrofit experiment...