Another One Bites the Dust

My apologies to Queen.

I've been characterized as one who repairs times way too many times instead of tossing and buying. This is true even though the cost of the item is 15 bucks or less.

Yesterday I tried to salvage a vacuum cleaner that had been my parent's. It was an older Kenmore canister model with a power head. Most likely it was manufactured on or before 1978. Still, it had given me great service over the years since my Mother's death in 1992.

The last several times I used it, the motor was making very loud noises, as if the fan was scraping against a shroud. "Hmmmmmmmmmm?", I said to myself. "It might be an easy fix." Nothing could have been a more false statement.

It only took a few moments to have the patient upside down on the operating table, opened up, and its motor removed. Gently rotating the armature by hand produced the familiar scraping noise. Peering into the shroud opening showed the top disc of the fan resting on the bottom of the shroud.

For those interested, here is a more technical description of the fan's construction.

The fan for this design consists of two parallel disks with curved fins mounted between them. The one disk has a very small hole at its hub for mounting it on the motor shaft while the other has a hole about one and one-half inches in diameter in the center where the air enters it. Typical dimensions are six inches in diameter with one-fourth or three-eighths inch wide fins. It spins at a very high speed, creating stronger suction than its cousin but is more limited in the amount of air-flow it can handle efficiently.

A closer inspection of the fan showed radial cracks in the lower disk (the one mounting the fan assembly to the armature shaft.) These cracks (which I believe were stress cracks) allowed the lower disk to distort, curving upward toward the upper disk. This changed the relative position of the upper disk, displacing it upwards until it was in contact with the underside of the shroud. The disk/shroud contact then caused the noise as the two surfaces rubbed together when the motor was turned on.

This did not look to be an easy fix without a new fan and removing the shroud. So off to the web site for Fears and SlowBuck parts. After entering the model number, I zeroed in on the exploded parts diagram and located the number of the fan assembly. Scrolling down the page there it was, "Part discontinued. No longer available." Sigh! Very Heavy Sigh!

"Hmmmmmmm? Maybe I can remove the shroud and make a new lower disk?"

An inspection of how the shroud was pressed onto a cast housing was not encouraging. Without destroying the shroud, I could not remove it to get to the fan and repair it. There was no way I could make another shroud.

"Curses. Foiled again."

The motor was placed back into the patient and closed up. I left it on the operating table for the night. This morning, without the dignity of ceremony, the vacuum cleaner and its accessories were placed in the 90 gallon green wonder for pickup and burial next week.

Another one from our disposable society will no longer bite the dust.

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