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Has anybody else with a Ridgid 4511 experienced arbor bearing failure.
My problems started about 3 weeks ago when I noticed a different noise coming from the saw. It first showed up when using a full stack of dado blades. It sounded like a rough bearing, changing frequency, and even a little chirping. The saw also seemed to have a little difficulty cutting through a 2 by. I kept my ears on it, didn’t use it a lot, but enough to finish a small project.
I took the blade off and cleaned the saw completely. Turned the saw on, without the blade, and it sounded rough, though a lot different without the blade. I called an engineer friend over to see what he thought of it. First thing we did was remove the belt and run the motor by itself. It purred like a kitten. You could tell by turning the arbor by hand that the 2 arbor bearings were a problem.
He was game to dig into it so we had the arbor carrier off in about 20 minutes and it was real clear that the bearings were bad. We popped the bearings out of the race and examined closely. They basically were running dry. It sounded like there was no lubricant in either bearing. They were bearing# 6004-z. Looking in the saw’s parts manual and at Ridgid’s site, the bearing spec is 6004-zz. A z model bearing has one metal shield, a zz bearing has two metal shields. It appears to me they put the wrong bearings in my saw.
The saw is regestered under the lifetime warranty, so I’ll call them tomorrow to see if they will mail the bearings to me. In any event the bearing is a very generic model and costs little (about $6 per). I’ll order and change out the serpentine belt at the same time.
I was just curious if anyone else had a problem with their Ridgid 4511 arbor bearings.
Crafty Puzzles 
