Does keeping the motor housing, mounting brackets, and shaft attached increase or decrease the scrap price?
Short answer: It depends entirely on what those parts are made of — if the housing, brackets, and shaft are steel or cast iron, keeping them attached to a motor you're selling intact doesn't hurt, since the whole thing prices as mixed metal anyway, but if you've already pulled the copper windings separately, leftover steel or iron housing components should be sold as ferrous scrap on their own rather than discarded, since they still have real, if modest, value.
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List Free →Selling intact: housing and brackets don’t change much
If you’re selling a motor as a complete, intact unit, the housing, mounting brackets, and shaft are just part of the total mixed-metal weight being priced together — their presence doesn’t meaningfully help or hurt beyond adding to the overall weight at whatever blended rate applies.
After pulling the copper, don’t discard the shell
Once the valuable copper windings are removed, the remaining steel or cast iron housing, brackets, and shaft are still sellable ferrous scrap — a lower value per kilogram than copper, certainly, but real money that’s easy to overlook if you’re focused on the copper and toss the shell aside.
Bearings and shafts specifically
Shafts are usually solid steel and price as ferrous scrap along with the housing. Bearings are typically small enough in volume that separating them out usually isn’t worth the effort — they can generally go with the rest of the ferrous material without much price impact either way.
How ScrapTrade Makes This Easier
Listing the leftover steel motor shell as a separate “ferrous — post-winding-removal” lot on ScrapTrade, rather than discarding it, captures value that’s otherwise easy to leave on the table.
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