Brushes full of metal crap?

Bearings shot? - any loud noises?

How much cutting slag is there trapped within the blade guard? Mine builds up an needs to be removed every 4 or 5 blade changes.

Does the smoke smell electrical? Or more metallic?

 

That is the "magic smoke". It can either be expended in a big puff - instantenous demise, or smaller puffs like you are experiencing. Eventually you will run out of magic smoke and your saw will work no longer.

 

It sounds like bearings... and the smoke.. its enough that i cant stand in the garage, and its billowing out liek the garage is up in a ball of flames.

Anything I can do? Or maybe a cheap motor that I can put in there?

 

contrary to popular belief moters run on smoke, the electricity just activates it, If the smoke gets out the moter won't run anymore :flipoff2:

 

Usually the smoke is from overheating, causing the enamal on the windinds to melt (and smoke). As the enamal melts off the windings begin to short into each other, and the motor's performance drops and the heating problem increases. Short of a new motor there is probably not much you can do. If it is a HF saw, it probably isn't worth the replacement of a quality motor. You could either replace the saw with the same model, or sack up and buy a quality unit.

 

take the plastic cover off of the motor on the left side, there will be 2 screws that came loose. also look at the brushes, ones will be worn more than the other.
mine did it in less than 10 uses on good power supply.