[A_Reed]

Step 1: Tool Setup. I would not suggest buying a gear puller for this task. All of the ones I have tried before were really cheap an broke as I applied pressure on the arbor press or turned the accompanying screws. You really are better off making your own tools. My suggestion is to take about 3 inches of 1/16" C-Channel and about half an hour on the mill getting it to fit like a fork with sidewalls underneath the pinion. Apply preferred bearing load to remove, with the assistance of a pin near the end.

Step 2: Prep motor for new pinion. Take your FP, a V-Block(with preferred method of holding: Thumbscrew or duct tape) and a parallel. You'll want to set your FP up in the v-block so that the little but end of the drive shaft is supported by the parallel, this was learned from experience through a few FPs not working properly due to the shaft being forced through the motor itself. Apply whatever method of fastening you wish to keep the motor in the v-block as you wish and set the whole apparatus upright. This also has the big, main advantage of keeping the motor perpendicular to the easily bendable shaft.

Step 3: Press the new Pinion gear. Set your entire apparatus upright under the head of whatever press you have available so that you have the parallel at the bottom and of course the bare shaft at the pressing head. Take five minutes to make yourself a new tool by taking a piece of thin gauge sheet metal and cutting a v into it thus making a shim to press your pinion against. This is also learned from trial and error, you do not want to press your gears flush to the face of the FP motor, even though it is going against a nice bronze bushing this practice causes binding and robs a lot of efficiency. A little shim goes a long way towards a free spinning pinion. Carefully line up your pinion under the head of the press and slowly and evenly apply pressure and at some point you may need to grab a socket from a wrench set and use it to press the gear the rest of the way down to your shim. This should go relatively smoothly, if you feel a hard stop or it is taking a large amount of perspiration to force the gear down stop and take a minute to assess the situation and resolve any binding you may be experiencing before you bend the shaft.

Step 4: Clean up the shaft length. Take your newly mounted pinion and FP assembly over to a bench grinder and slowly shave the FP's drive shaft down until your grinder just taps the head of the pinion. This step could probably be refined and brought up to better standards of safety (as you have to get your fingers really close the grinder) but it has always worked for us in the past. We have had problems in the past trying to use hacksaws and other methods of cutting as it either bends the shaft, spins the shaft (locking the pinion in a vice flattens teeth) or imparts too much heat to the armature and (plastic) fan blades, all causing improper operation of the motor.

Step 5: Not much of a step really just a quick tip for the installation of the FP onto the BB mounting plates. When you get the really super short screws to install the FP to the Bane Bots mounting plate you'll notice that they only hang on by about three or four threads into the face of the motor. You have to be really cautious not to over tighten these screws as you will strip the threads out of your motors making them rather wiggly when they only have one mounting point or not connect at all when you strip both.

I hope this little process helps those who read it and I hope to hear back with suggestions for improvement to my own methods.

Thank You.

P.S. Save any tools you happen to make for the years to come. One good set of custom gear pulling tools that work efficiently are really good to have tucked away.