Dewalt impact driver abuse

[Nicad]

Haven't been here much lately as I am pretty absorbed by my 2 stroke motorcycle project and a refurb of my Forester daily that I'm aiming for 400,000 Km and beyond.
Last fall while closing up the island I spend my falls on, I left my Dewalt 20 Volt impact driver on the ground, It was left at the bottom of a hill, and would have been covered in snow from the end of November till mid April. Where it was found also would have been in line to be in a stream with the runoff from the hill. Add the heavy rains we get in the Spring and that tool has seen some abuse.

Found it yesterday after wondering if someone had stolen it from my urban place. Pushed the battery indicator and it was completely dead. (Lithium battery). Put a good battery in and it works. Bit of dust came out of the vents, a bit of sparking, and it doesn't quite sound fresh.
Get the feeling it's longevity has been compromised, but still quite impressed with Dewalt engineering. If I take it apart, assuming it is serviceable, would I lube a lot of components or just clean them with ?? I figure E9 folks who diagnose faults in coffee maker design might have some ideas about keeping this survivor working long term.

 

[eriknetherlands]

Cool story.
I would specifically check the copper &solder connections. They degrade quickest.
Also simply foreign parts can create havoc in the long run. Open it up, clean, check for corrosion on electrical connectors and reassemble. Not much more you can do I think.

Send the story to dewalt; they might even be interested in more info.
Working at a product company myself, no better commercial then these stories.

Nothing says "Buy with confidence" more then this.

 

[Arde]

Excellent example to illustrate where people will end up:

- Heaven: those who write Dewalt to thank them for a great product.
- Purgatory: those who call the battery maker to complain the battery did not hold the charge.
- Hell: those who call American Express to try and get a new unit claiming accidental loss.

 

[Ohmess]

I like Corrosion X for cleaning up electrical connections because it displaces moisture and then protects the connection.

To clean and lubricate moving parts, I would use a firearms cleaner/lubricant like Breakfree.

 

[Nicad]

To save the $100 replacement cost, I put several hours into this impact driver. I enjoyed it's resuscitation and scratched my head more than once getting it to run reliably.
Nicely built inside. All the steel parts were rusted of course . Soaked the coils in Evaporust and the speed control switch as well.. Wire brushed the core (Armature?) . This one is a brushless motor. Has quite impressive torque. Cleaned out the soggy grease from the drive components and the main bearing was completely sealed and still spun perfectly. I used silicon grease to put it back together and sprayed connections with ACF50 ....and it worked...but then it didn't.
Took it apart again trying to figure out why it would run sometimes and then stop or if I twisted the battery....or when it wanted to.
This afternoon before almost pulling the trigger on Amazon for a new one, I opened it up again and pried the trigger mechanism apart and cleaned the contact area of greasy, watery sludge then put silicon grease in there. Now it runs very nicely. It sounds smoother than the brand new City one I keep at home. Going to put a date mark on this one and see which one lasts the longest. It has been used extensively for the last 4 years bolting and unbolting all kinds of wood projects and a very large deck...Thousands of screws. It would probably be pretty good for taking cars apart too if you didn't need an impact gun. Made in the USA (With parts from unknown origin). Thumbs up Dewalt!

 

[bluecoupe30!]

You must get your own You Tube channel, Nicad. Get people off of TikTok. Show them something constructive, like rescuing a long lost power tool. Or what you have to do to get a Subaru to 400K km, you have a lot of material. Promise to "Like" at least the initial posting!

 

[Blinkling]

I don’t trust anything I haven’t taken apart, personally. I predict this one will outlast the others because you have practice at tearing it down and rebuilding it and no reason not to!