damiansd
Well-known member
Bought some timber and a Forster bit to mount some doors on the overhead bookshelves I've been building.
Sure looks like Goldendales old parts runner?
It does look very nice!
After this repaint the fan worked good for a day. Then I was working in the shop and I heard a nice POP and a breaker popped. I didnt see what the culprit was since I had many things running but I suspected the fan. I thought maybe I got paint on the motor circuit or brushes causing high resistance or something wacky. I reset the breaker and everything worked fine including the fan. I tapped and shook the fan and tried to get it to fail again but it ran fine. It worked for about 4 more months just fine and then 2 days ago I went to turn it on and it popped with a nice spark and then shut down. It would not come back on and no breakers were popped. Clearly there was a failure of either the motor or the wiring or the switch. I did a search on this motor and there wasn't much info. It did lead me here and I got some info. I decided to dig into the fan and investigate. I pulled the fan apart and pulled the motor and switch and cord out to put it on the bench as one unit. I pulled the back of the switch off. Loosened the jam nut and pulled the switch cover off. The switch looked to be in amazing shape as was the cord terminals. The other wires were of a different type and seemed to be ok at least at the switch terminals. Inspecting the wire from the switch that went to the motor showed that these wires were not in good shape. The insulation was very very very brittle and could not withstand any bending without crumbling and exposing bare copper conductor. There were several places were the wiring bent around something , such as entering the motor housing where all 5 wires had broken insulation and the conductors were touching or close to touching. I found another run were several wires had clearly touched and melted and caused an "open". This was the culprit. Normal procedures would be to make a splice. But in this case no splice was possible on any inch of this wiring. It was not going to withstand the slightest touch. It was clear motor replacement was the best option. A quick search turned up nothing. The options to find another 50 year old motor was also less than desirable after inspecting this wiring. All other Westinghouse fans that use this insulation were likely to be the same. I decided to dig further and take apart the motor. Three long bolts with nuts and the motor came apart in four pieces. The front cover, rear cover, center body that housed the coils and the center rotating shaft. All of these parts probably have trade names but I dont know the jargon. You get the idea though. I also noticed at this point this motor had no brushes. I suppose my notion that these motors had brushes is probably due to my ignorance regarding AC motors. DC motors tend to have brushes from my limited experience. This meant that if I could rewire this motor this thing would likely last another 50 years. The bearings in the front and rear covers still mated very very well with the shaft and it had very very little play. I found that the five wires that came out of the switch that enter the fan housing actually are routed the the center body that contain the coils. It was routed from the back through one of the openings to the front of the coils. I had to carefully break all the old strings used to tie the wires during assy. These strings were rock hard and it took a pick to break each one. Next a razor knife was used to cut the "snake skin" conduit in an attempt to free each of the five wires. The goal here was to free each wire so I could find out were they terminate. As I slowly tugged each wire out I found that they were all terminated to the end of a particular coil. Some also had a jumper wire so there were three wires on some. I pulled each one out so it could be worked on. See pics.
I left the wires still hooked up all the way to the switch...except the one that broke. This was i could physically follow the wire from each coil, through the body and back to the switch and hopefully make the connections. I used some aircraft wire that is very very tough for the replacement. I stripped the ends and snaked it through the coil using the same route as the previous wiring. I would pick out a particular previous wire and follow it to were it was soldered to the coil wire, snip the original wire leaving the previous solder joint and then solder the new wire in place. I would then pull the old wire out. I repeated this for the other wires and jumper wires. until all new wires were soldered to coil wires and the old wires were pulled out. I then used electrical tape to wrap those areas and tucked the ends back into the coil spaces where they were previously. One thing to note here...the coil wires appear to be bare copper wires. But it is my understanding that they are actually lacquer covered copper wires. it is important to not damage any part of the coil wires and also to not melt the wire too much so that the wire becomes exposed too far from the solder joint. Cover as much as you can to ensure there will be no internal shorts.
Here is a close up of one of the original wires and how it looks terminating to a coil wire. It looks like this one had two coil wires and one incoming wire and one jumper.
Here is another pic of a single wire coming through the body (in the snake skin loom) and terminating to a single coil wire. These are easy.
What it looked like when all the new wires were run, soldered, and tucked back in.
The old wiring...very dangerous IMO. But lasted 50 years.
The newly rewired motor installed with new pig tail exposed running from the back of the motor to the switch. Note the fan is running.
I had no idea if this would work. I have just basic electrical knowledge acquired while working aircraft. Some of what i am saying could very well be wrong...or not up to par with existing codes and regulations. Do this at your own risk. Messing with coil windings on motors and generators is a trade unto its self. Having said that...if I had to do this again it would be much easier. I hope someone can find this useful. This took about 3 hours and much of that was just poking around trying to figure out the routing without damaging anything.
I worked on the heart of the beast all weekend building it back up from a complete tear down. Got to a the water pump and after evaluation decided better put a new one than risk having the old one fail down the road.
View media item 51766
I purchased a decent shape Mobilaire 3 blade fan with the 6 sided motor. It worked great in my garage for about 3 years. I then decided to repaint it and clean it up just to make it look a little cleaner. I am definitely not a "restorer". I just like to take old things and bring them back to useful condition and do some cleaning and touch up along the way. Anyways...I did the repaint and clean up and it came out pretty good. See pics below.After this repaint the fan worked good for a day. Then I was working in the shop and I heard a nice POP and a breaker popped. I didnt see what the culprit was since I had many things running but I suspected the fan. I thought maybe I got paint on the motor circuit or brushes causing high resistance or something wacky. I reset the breaker and everything worked fine including the fan. I tapped and shook the fan and tried to get it to fail again but it ran fine. It worked for about 4 more months just fine and then 2 days ago I went to turn it on and it popped with a nice spark and then shut down. It would not come back on and no breakers were popped. Clearly there was a failure of either the motor or the wiring or the switch. I did a search on this motor and there wasn't much info. It did lead me here and I got some info. I decided to dig into the fan and investigate. I pulled the fan apart and pulled the motor and switch and cord out to put it on the bench as one unit. I pulled the back of the switch off. Loosened the jam nut and pulled the switch cover off. The switch looked to be in amazing shape as was the cord terminals. The other wires were of a different type and seemed to be ok at least at the switch terminals. Inspecting the wire from the switch that went to the motor showed that these wires were not in good shape. The insulation was very very very brittle and could not withstand any bending without crumbling and exposing bare copper conductor. There were several places were the wiring bent around something , such as entering the motor housing where all 5 wires had broken insulation and the conductors were touching or close to touching. I found another run were several wires had clearly touched and melted and caused an "open". This was the culprit. Normal procedures would be to make a splice. But in this case no splice was possible on any inch of this wiring. It was not going to withstand the slightest touch. It was clear motor replacement was the best option. A quick search turned up nothing. The options to find another 50 year old motor was also less than desirable after inspecting this wiring. All other Westinghouse fans that use this insulation were likely to be the same. I decided to dig further and take apart the motor. Three long bolts with nuts and the motor came apart in four pieces. The front cover, rear cover, center body that housed the coils and the center rotating shaft. All of these parts probably have trade names but I dont know the jargon. You get the idea though. I also noticed at this point this motor had no brushes. I suppose my notion that these motors had brushes is probably due to my ignorance regarding AC motors. DC motors tend to have brushes from my limited experience. This meant that if I could rewire this motor this thing would likely last another 50 years. The bearings in the front and rear covers still mated very very well with the shaft and it had very very little play. I found that the five wires that came out of the switch that enter the fan housing actually are routed the the center body that contain the coils. It was routed from the back through one of the openings to the front of the coils. I had to carefully break all the old strings used to tie the wires during assy. These strings were rock hard and it took a pick to break each one. Next a razor knife was used to cut the "snake skin" conduit in an attempt to free each of the five wires. The goal here was to free each wire so I could find out were they terminate. As I slowly tugged each wire out I found that they were all terminated to the end of a particular coil. Some also had a jumper wire so there were three wires on some. I pulled each one out so it could be worked on. See pics.I left the wires still hooked up all the way to the switch...except the one that broke. This was i could physically follow the wire from each coil, through the body and back to the switch and hopefully make the connections. I used some aircraft wire that is very very tough for the replacement. I stripped the ends and snaked it through the coil using the same route as the previous wiring. I would pick out a particular previous wire and follow it to were it was soldered to the coil wire, snip the original wire leaving the previous solder joint and then solder the new wire in place. I would then pull the old wire out. I repeated this for the other wires and jumper wires. until all new wires were soldered to coil wires and the old wires were pulled out. I then used electrical tape to wrap those areas and tucked the ends back into the coil spaces where they were previously. One thing to note here...the coil wires appear to be bare copper wires. But it is my understanding that they are actually lacquer covered copper wires. it is important to not damage any part of the coil wires and also to not melt the wire too much so that the wire becomes exposed too far from the solder joint. Cover as much as you can to ensure there will be no internal shorts. Here is a close up of one of the original wires and how it looks terminating to a coil wire. It looks like this one had two coil wires and one incoming wire and one jumper. Here is another pic of a single wire coming through the body (in the snake skin loom) and terminating to a single coil wire. These are easy. What it looked like when all the new wires were run, soldered, and tucked back in. The old wiring...very dangerous IMO. But lasted 50 years. The newly rewired motor installed with new pig tail exposed running from the back of the motor to the switch. Note the fan is running I had no idea if this would work. I have just basic electrical knowledge acquired while working aircraft. Some of what i am saying could very well be wrong...or not up to par with existing codes and regulations. Do this at your own risk. Messing with coil windings on motors and generators is a trade unto its self. Having said that...if I had to do this again it would be much easier. I hope someone can find this useful. This took about 3 hours and much of that was just poking around trying to figure out the routing without damaging anything.
Worked on my 62 Ford F-100 restore. Putting in a 4-link suspension and have had to swap retreads. Using a 1997 Ford Explorer unit so have to cut and grind the brackets of the axle tubes. Also installed tires on rims for the truck.
Finished putting my security system on wireless so I can view it in Houston while away. Adjusted all 3 garage doors to make the opening and closing much easier.
Holy ****.
I'd have called that fan scrap.
You brought it back to life!
Kudos.
They warranty consumables???? Wow we need them up here........Replaced my 3rd set of rear brake pads into the rear of my Jeep JKU. Man those things go down fast. Thank you Autozone lifetime warranty![]()
