I have a Sabre 500 which I recently bought, and it's FILTHY. I'm cleaning it up during my retrofit, and I came across something odd.

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The red cap on top of the spindle motor contains a cooling fan. The top of that housing was covered in cakey grease, so much so that the airflow through it must be restricted.
I pulled the fan housing to clean it, and discovered that it is PACKED with grease inside. Not just greasy, but like an inch thick layer around the inside of the housing, with the fan blade tips dragging through the grease. It seems like clean, fresh grease, so it must be there intentionally. There doesn't seem to be a zerk on it anywhere, so it seems like it was packed with clean black grease, then the fan was installed.

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This is after taking it apart and starting to clean it up. I've literally taken handfuls of grease out of there at this point.

The fan itself is a pretty normal pancake style fan, although it's 3 phase:

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I really can't imagine why that grease would be there, what purpose it serves. The top of the spindle motor is a sealed case, so there's no need for grease for it. The only thing I could possibly guess is to catch chips or dust or something?

I found another similar fan on ebay, and it's grease-free:

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