Thanks for the heads up. I'll check out the bottom part for brass the next time i'm doing one. That would be a good find.
I usually make two cuts with the pipe cutter. One to lift the top part off. The second cut is lower down and let's me lift out the copper wound stator.
What's left over is the shaft and the lowest part that has all the oil in it. I just tip that upside down over a bucket and let it hang there for a couple of days. It's fairly dry by the time it eventually lands on the metals recycling pile.
I used to run into a lot of dead mice and rodents nests when i was pounding nails for a living. You open up a wall and find a nest. Nasty,nasty,nasty ... they pee and poop where they sleep. The worst ones i ever found were in the cavities of cast iron bath tubs. Had to break out the gloves, face mask, and HEPA filter vacuum for those jobs. There's a sickness called the Hantavirus in some of the nests that can kill you. It gets in your lungs and then takes out your heart and kidneys. It's not all that common but it's better not to take chances when you run into a nest. Just one of those hazards of the job.
The strangest thing i ever ran across when i opened up a wall was bare electrical wires. There was a stretch of romex running through there and the mice had completely eaten off every bit of plastic wire insulation. It's a miracle that none of those wires had ever touched. It would have burned the place to the ground.
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