Can't remove pinion gear
 

Hey guys,

My pinion gear seems to be stuck on my motor shaft, and I can't get it off.

I've tried heating it first with a soldering iron, but it still won't budge.

Does anyone have any ideas that I could try?


Cheers

dip it in WD40 overnight. just the pinion not the whole motor :)

Yes the grub screw is out. There doesn't appear to be any corrosion, I did use red threadlock on the shaft to keep the pinion in place, and it seems to be proving more of a problem to remove than I thought...

Tried using WD-40 and light motor oil, neither of which loosened it up.

UH OH. Never use Red Loctite. It requires heating to a temp of over 500 degrees to soften it's grip. This much heat will damage the motor.

Red is usually used for permanent instalation.

I would probably cut it off using a cut off wheel and a dremel tool. Taking my time to not over heat things.

Cut a little, dip the pinion in water, cut a little, dip, cut, dip, cut..........

Blue Loctite is a good choice for grub screws and pinions.

hi there, i dont know the exact threadlock variations, but maybe it helps:

back in the day when i raced bigscale, there where some things that needed blue threadlock, just to secure but easy to unscrew again. if you didnt, your full alu car fell apart :P

We also learned never to put threadlock on a shaft, put it on the screw, screw it in and whipe all excess lube off so the shaft stays free of the goo.

near the motor and gears, blue wasnt sufficiant and we used green one. the red one was never used because of the problem you are having now.

with the green one it was only posible to get the gears off this way:

take a little torch or even a lighter will do, hold it against the shaft at the piont where the pinion is stuck till you see the metal sweat, about 40 sec.

then secure the pinion firmly so you can tap the shaft with a smal hammer. just gentle taps and if that not works, re-heat again, works everytime, but my advise is that you dont use red anymore.

if above fails than there is the option to put the shaft in the freezer (wich will shrink the shaft only minor) the next day heat up your pinion (wich will expand only just enough to take it off)

my pinion stays on perfectly with blue. and if it where so that the bugger got stuck, i just heat up my screwdriver and stick it in the screw for a few seconds. that way only the screw and its thread will heat up, instead of a big 5mm shaft witch wont heat up so easily.

hope it helps.

Thanks for all the advice, I actually managed to get it off with sheer brute force. Hurt my hand a bit though, damn those HPI Castle motor fins!

For future reference: pinion puller

Use blue thread lock, but allow it to cure fully overnight- it wont work well if its still gummy.

me any my buddies use red thread lock on our pinions and all you have to do is hit it with a heat gun for like 10-15 seconds and it will come off.

A small butane torch lighter will heat it up quick and should do the trick. Biggest lesson, put the loktite on the set screw, not on the motor shaft

I'm with Neil. There are a lot of nice and inexpensive pinion pullers on the market that would have done that job in a hurry. I like the Eflite one myself, but most of them follow the same basic idea. Would have saved your hands and kept a pulling force away from the rotor as all the pulling force is concentrated on the base of the pinion and the end of the motor shaft.