Evaporator blower shuts down

[MikeHolloway]

I have an old Fedders central air. Noticed that air wasn't moving from the vents. Went up into the crawl space to take a look. The fan wasn't moving, but the outside compressor seems fine. I can hear coolant moving. No evidence of ice. After shutting the system down for about ten minutes the fan will come on for several minutes, then just shut down. Cycle is repeatable. The motor is too hot to touch. What I take to be the capacitor looks fine. Some dust bunnies, but, outside of possible overheating, nothing I can identify as wrong. Is there something shutting the fan down when overheated? If so, does the motor need replacing?
Have to remove the periods from the photo url below because the site is blocking posts with addresses.
Photo of fan and capacitor: www flickr com/photos/51998041@N04/4788552789/

Thanks,
Mike Holloway

[MikeHolloway]

A little more googling shows that A/C motors do have thermal shutdown. This one's working just fine. So I'm assuming that I have to clean it out and oil it. Does anyone know if the oil ports are obvious? Seems you can't just shoot WD40 at it (damn).
Hoping to do this without removing the motor. Going to try compressed air and a vacuum. If this doesn't work, and I can't see oil ports, I guess I'm going to have to take the damn thing out.

[hvacwiz]

You can try to oil it and clean it out, but due to the age of the motor, chances are it needs replaced.

[paul52446m]

A little more googling shows that A/C motors do have thermal shutdown. This one's working just fine. So I'm assuming that I have to clean it out and oil it. Does anyone know if the oil ports are obvious? Seems you can't just shoot WD40 at it (damn).
Hoping to do this without removing the motor. Going to try compressed air and a vacuum. If this doesn't work, and I can't see oil ports, I guess I'm going to have to take the damn thing out.

A lot of motors are sealed. I call them 10 yr. motors, then they want you to buy a new one. Look at both ends of the motor and see if it is belled out a little around the shaft. If the blower is not spinning free then you could try taking the motor out and take a little punch and punch a little hole in the taper of that belled out area. There is felt packing in there that was oiled to start with and it needs to be filled with oil. keep rolling the motor over by hand and putting the oil in the ends and see if it frees up. If the bearing have not been damaged get, i have done this and the motor will go for years.
If the blower is spinning real free but does not want to start and come up to speed then it still could be your start cap. I lot of the motors do have a internal heat over load that turns them off. later paul

[MikeHolloway]

Thanks. There are open plastic tubes on both ends of the motor that run to the hub. Filled with 3 in 1. Motor still overheats. Pulled the capacitor and looking for replacement. Hope not to have to wait for something ordered on line. So I think I'm looking for an oval run capacitor 5 uf 370 VAC. Does that mean 5 microfarad and 370 volts?

Thanks,
Mike Holloway

[HayZee518]

the motor uses a centrifugal start switch. there's a set of spring loaded flyballs on the rotor shaft that move outward when the motor starts, opening a set of contacts that are connected to the capacitor. it is a flat movable hub made of phenolic or nylon that rubs against the centrifugal switch. it must be free to operate correctly. might behoove you to take apart the motor and check it out. while its open super saturate those bearings. answer to the cap value you are correct - 5mfd at 370 volts. apply a voltage to the motor for a second, disconnect power and jump out the cap's terminals with a screwdriver. a nice fat spark means its ok.