Your symptoms are unusual but 24F differential is exellent. Don't worry about bearings, I seriously doupt that's the problem. Tell us how many secounds/minutes is "good while after a couple of restarts"? What you describe sound's like compressor is not getting off of start circuit. Everthing is pointing toward compressor capacitor(s) and they are one of the few items cheap enough to try on a hunch. If the metal case is swollen or plastic case is leaking that seal's the deal,bad capacitor but I would try a new one either way.

Hmm, so if the start capacitor is weak it will cause the compressor to pull 30 amps? I'll do a restart within a few seconds but the system has a delay I think because it doesn't start pulling hot air out for a couple of minutes. I do have 2 capacities , 1 is a 60 uf and the other is smaller (I've not looked at the smaller 1)

Capacitor is simply a wild guess,we are operating here without much detail you know. There are other possable reason's beside's caps. To name a few,extremly dirty coils,fan turning too slow,fan blade in wrong position,wrong fan motor,wrong fan blade,high resistance electrical connection,bad/clogged metering device and of course bad compressor. I don't suspect compressor because they usually pull more than 50% extra amps when going bad. 30 amps probably mean's it's getting off the start winding because start pull's more like 100+ amps. If the small cap is 3 to 7uf it's for the fan. If you can't find exact replacement cap,20% over in uf and higher volt rating is ok. You still didn't tell us how long "good while" is.

Sry ... A good while was about 12 hours running my thermostat at 76 degrees. So far the last time I cooled it ff which was Saturday it's been running great since, it's Monday morning without a hicup.

System is 11 years old. Coils cleaned every 6 months and recently 3 weeks ago, fan blade fine and running in the right direction. I'm an old Maint Engineer so I keep all my equipment up on their PMs . No components besides the start capacitor had ever been replaced. Full of freon with no leaks.

i don't mind changing the 60uf cap, at $20 it's a cheap way to find out. I only assumed my compressor was going out especially being 11 years old. I can hear a slight rattle in the beatings ..... Not a bad rattle ....

With good maintainance your compressor is probably good for another 5 or ten years. I've heard many compressors rattle like they were comeing apart and run for years without failing. There's nothing you can do for hermeticlly sealed compressors other than routine maintainance. If it's someting one obcesses over,cleaning connectors on 5 year intervals can head off wires burning off but even that rarly damages internal parts. 90% of blower motors don't have lub ports but they can be improvised. It's best to see a dismantled motor so you know how felt fit's around bearings so you know where to drill. A hole is drilled in case then plugged with a 6-32 or 8-32 machine screw.

Thank you for your comments