We have not supported the CIM motor based on the 2002 version. That one had an integral gear and included a cluster gear. Since the original application of the motor was unsupported than we felt our application was solid.
One word of caution - we still place the gear as close to the motor as possible. The farther from the bearing the larger the moment force. This goes for cantileverd wheels also. Place a bearing as close to the wheel as possible.
As for as the gearbox output shaft, we generally run a double sprocket with the chains pulling in opposite directions helping to balance the load on the shaft. With the low life of our robots (10 to 20 hours) you would probably not see any problems with side loading.
BTW, we did not support the the end of the drill motor in our shifting gearbox this past fall and do not plan on it for this next year. One of those engineering trade-offs. We may need to replace the motors at some point but I believe that they should last through two regionals, we will see
