I have a Centaur Forge PB 50 electric blower, the motor is shot. Sounds like the bearings are bad, and it trips the breaker every time I pug it in. Specs are

Make- Baldor
HP- .2
Frame- 56CZ Has both a base and face frame mount, does the Z stand for Haz location?
Amps- 3.1
RPM- 3400
Shaft dia.- 1/2"
Probably made in the early to mid 1990's

The impeller is mounted directly on the motor shaft end, the blower housing is bolted to the c frame.

Just spent an hour googling to find a replacement, the usual suspects (Surplus Center, McMaster, Grainger) came close but no cigar. Anyone else replaced an older Centaur blower motor? If all else fails I'll take it to the local motor repair shop but suspect it will cost near replacement to get a rebuild.

Thanks all.

56 =3 1/2 inches from center of shaft to bottom of mount.
C = C frame face mount.
Z = non-standard shaft (probably short) or other non standard housing dimension

I'm not sure on the "Z", but I think it refers to a non-slandard shaft. On fans, the shaft is often either reduced in diameter, increased in length or generally messed about with in some way. You'll probably need to measure it.

I don't think you need to find an absolutely identical replacement.

If you are on a speed controller, that may limit your choice of motor, but if you are throttling the inlet, or outlet, for flow control, you'll need something that physically fits (including, if I'm right, whatever is non-standard on the shaft), has 2 poles (3600 RPM or thereabouts) and has no less than the original power.

A higher-rated motor is no problem; it will just run lightly loaded. Unless you have a massive impeller to accelerate to speed in yours, fans are about the lightest starting duty it's possible to get, so the motor doesn't need to be specced for high starting torque. It does no harm if it is though. Googling the Centaur PB50 shows an Aluminium impeller of fairly small diameter, so no problem there.

If the bearings are bad change them yourself. It's no big deal.

Thanks guys. The z for odd shaft makes sense, it's extra long to pass thru the blower housing.

I assume that you contacted Centaur Forge to see if they had an old one sitting back in the warehouse all lonely like? Some companies will have old stock that doesn't get added into new catalogs as there isn't enough of them to advertise.