Patent ID: 8378549

Claim:
An electric motor comprising: a yoke housing that has an opening at one axial end part of the yoke housing; an armature that has a commutator and is rotatably received in the yoke housing; and a brush holder that is installed to the opening of the yoke housing and guides a plurality of brushes in a slidable manner, wherein: each of the plurality of brushes is tilted relative to an imaginary plane that is perpendicular to a rotational axis of the armature and is placed on one axial side of the brush holder, at which an interior of the yoke housing is located; a radial inner end part of each of the plurality of brushes has a slide contact surface, which is generally parallel to the rotational axis of the armature and slidably contacts an outer peripheral surface of the commutator; at least a portion of the slide contact surface of each of the plurality of brushes is axially disposed outside of the opening of the yoke housing; the yoke housing includes at least one flange, which radially outwardly extends from the opening of the yoke housing; the brush holder includes a plurality of brush holding portions that receive the plurality of brushes, respectively; each of the plurality of brush holding portions has an insertion opening that is placed at a radially outer end part of the brush holding portion and is adapted to install the corresponding one of the plurality of brushes therethrough into an interior of the brush holding portion; and the insertion openings of the plurality of brush holding portions open toward the at least one flange in an axial direction parallel to the rotation axis of the armature and are directly opposed to the at least one flange in the axial direction.