Flooded electric motor and gearbox

[daedalus13]

Hello all,
    As some of you may know it flooded pretty bad here in Louisiana over the past few weeks, and I have been helping alot of family and friends clear out their homes. While doing so yesterday, I came across a flooded pride mobility scooter. I have been wanting these motors and controls for a long time for an rc lawnmower project. all of the electronics boards are corroded I believe the chair was underwater for 5 days. the gear box looks sealed and packed with grease and the motors have surface rust. What are the chances the motors are even salvageable, and if they are what are the best practices for restoring them. Thank you for any and all help, I just wanna know if its even worth my time.

[Ian.M]

It depends - if there was any voltage on the motors, electrolytic corrosion will have trashed them, otherwise if the battery was isolated there is a pretty good chance they are salvageable if you  strip them down, wash thoroughly with clean water, dry in a warm place for a week and clean up commutator and shaft surfaces. Lubricate the bearings and reassemble for a quick test and if they run, strip them down again if there was any rust on the armature and stator cores to clean it up and finish with a coat of rust converter, avoiding the windings before reassembly.  Non-sealed ball bearings will almost certainly need replacement - if they feel even slightly gritty, change them.

[amyk]

Even if they're not perfectly salvageable,

[Jeroen3]

Dissassemble, megger, clean, dry (oven 120c several hours), megger(, rewind the stator), reassemble.
Low chance it will run now.

[helius]

http://crcindustries.com/ei/water-damage-guide.aspx has some good advice. The products they make appear to be widely used by flood recovery teams.