The motor in my Delta benchtop drill press has just overheated!

After less than an hour of drilling series of holes in 1/32" sheet of polycarbonate, mostly idling, the motor has overheated.
I bought this drill press around 2003 and used it infrequently, for 1-4 holes at a time, in mild steel, but now that we are heading into hard times, I realize that I am essentially w/o a reliable drill press.
Any ideas how to prevent overheating if I ever have to drill for extended periods of time again? Mount an external fan on it? OMG, we should never have to worry about sh..t like this!
This is the same unit, for the reference:
Attachment 259605

No other implications here. First off check to see if there is a dust build up in the motor, this can cause it to overheat. Make sure the air passages are open and the fan is turning and not slipping. Last check the brushes and commentator. A gan might help but if the air passages are clogged blocked it wont be much.

Start by blowing it out with a air hose good. Do this outside as chances are theres going to be alot of dust fine chips come out.

you might also check the duty of the motor, it should be rated for continuous duty but sometimes they cheapen stuff up.

It's hard to get the smoke back in a motor after it leaks out.

the inside and those few vents that it has are pristine clean. the motor just does not have any provisions for forced air flow, none whatsoever. i am leaning towards rigging a different motor instead of trying to spice up this turd.

If your going to swap out motors, use a DC motor from an used treadmill. Then you can have variable speed and all the power you need.

There's a number of good videos on U-Tube showing how it's done.

RRR

I have exactly that, sitting under my reloading bench, but it is way too huge for the puny drill press. I am keeping it for my 5' wood lathe.
I was thinking of a smaller AC motor from an older Delta bandsaw that is still about 1 1/2 times the size of the factory motor and survived decades of cutting plywood for my friend.

I would also recommend the treadmill dc motor for the variable speed control use a 1-1 1/2 hp one for plenty of power. but I would not reject a 2 HP one either. One thing those drill presses lack are slower speeds for drilling metals and larger drills. The dc motor and controller changes that.

Treadmill motor is a great idea, but you need many parts from the treadmill to make it work.

My tabletop grizzly press is similar in shape and size, and I had to order a new motor 6months ago. If you cant find a motor from delta, try from grizzly it was $55. Pictures on the web site to compare to. I bet they are made in the same factory.

Sorry to hear that! Looks like these motors have been designed to fail. Congratulations, chicom.