A few months ago, the aux air pump in my wife's V90 crapped out. I got a used one on ebay for not much money, and held on to the dead one. Tonight, i started taking the old pump apart. Those rivets holding it together are real pushovers. Just crimp them on one end with a pair of pliers and then tap them through with a skinny screwdriver or a framing nail.

Anyway, I've determined that mine probably died from a failed bushing or bearing. The ohmeter showed that current was still able to pass through, but the fan was pretty hard to turn by hand. Another dead giveaway was that there was a lot of greasy black dust that kept falling out of the plastic housing. Looked like some poor rubber piece had finally groud itself down.

I had pretty much destroyed the fan in an attempt to see what was behind it. There is what looks like a retainer nut that holds the fan onto the motor shaft, but the bolt is completely round and tapered up, so it's impossible to grip with a any tools. If someone has gotten past this nut, please tell me how to do it before the pump carcass goes in the garbage.

Now this all begs the question: is there any safe way to lubricate the internal parts of this motor to prevent (or at least postpone) failure?