Bearing in theta motor damaged

It seems like one of the bearings in the theta motor has failed.

I got my table in the kickstarter campaign about 4 years ago.

My table started clicking and stalling a lot - i.e. after turning it on, it will just constantly click - which i think as others on this forum have interpretted as gears skipping. So i started dismantling the table to determine where the problem was, and nothing i removed stopped the clicking/stalling. Eventually i had the belt disconnected from the theta motor and it still kept stalling.

It makes sense that it was the theta motor stalling, as the ball would just move slowly outwards while the theta motor was stalled and the rho motor i guess was attempting to match the rotation it assumed the theta motor was doing to keep rho constant/moving at the correct speed for the pattern.

Next i took the motor out and dismantled that too, to find that the lower bearing has full of black shavings. I strongly suspect that over time the bearing has worn, and has allowed the rotor and stator to rub, which in turn has shed small metal filings into the lower bearing, which all end up sticking as everything was magnetised. I was not able to turn the lower bearing by hand.

After a bit of cleaning (wd40 to flush out what seemed like a lot of rust followed by a fairly liberal addition of grease), i'm now able to turn the bearing, but it wobbles a bit. This means that the rotor will experience sideways force under load which results in it touching the stator and subsequently skipping again.

I'm able to run the table on the lowest speed now, but anything above that (even 20% along the slider) causes it to skip fairly constantly.

I found the part for the theta motor on Kysan electronics, but they no longer have it in stock. Looking through the datasheets for other motors on their site, i found what seemds to be a suitable substitute - 2 phase, identical voltage/current/torque/etc., same dimensions, just with a 3mm longer shaft - but it has 6 wires instead of 4. The datasheets do not mention 6 wires on the "replacement" motor, and they label the wires it does have the same, here are the two motors:

Motor in table: Kysan 1124108 (data sheet), and potential replacement: Kysan 1123016 (datasheet)

So the question - does anyone know if the proposed replacement motor i see here will be a drop in replacement for the existing motor? A bit of research suggests that often bipolar stepper motors have an extra pair of wires that allow operation in unipolar mode - taking this into account, i am assuming that i'll be able to use the 6 wire version, and looking at the data sheets, i would just connect the same coolour wires in the same order as with the old motor, and then leave the black and white wires unconnected. Does this seem sensible?

Alternatively, i could try prising the damaged bearing off the existing shaft, replacing it with a new one, and then putting it back together.

Alternatively 2 - @Sisyphus - do you have any of the 1124108 motors kicking around that are not being used and could i purchase one from you?

Thanks,

Will.