Everything Mac Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 Hi guys, I'm finally back home after a long stretch away and today I got round to opening up the alcosa blower I got earlier in the year. It wasn't turning very far after I finished applying the power so I decided it needed a clean up. I was surprised how much junk was on the inside of the blower. It took quite a while to clean up the inside with WD40 and a few rags. The fan is not the original on but more on that in a minute. (excuse the mess - lot of stuff in a small man shed) Notice the grease on the right hand side: The gears were actually in pretty good nick. Once I cleaned them up and scraped off a bit of rust they were good as new. I did notice one issue. The spindle the fan attaches to is ever so slightly bent. and at some point it has been attacked by rust. Not enough to effect its connection to the gears fortunately. I attempted to straighten this out a bit without much luck. I'm going to have another go tomorrow in daylight. I'll get some pictures of the cleaned up blower too. Back to the impeller fan. As you can tell - it's not original. And I wonder if this is adding to the issues it was having? I do have the original impeller fan though - BUT, one of the blades has broken off. What do you guys think I should do? I can continue with the plastic fan which seems to work fine. Or should I try the broken impeller? I can't braze on a new blade as I have no kit to do so. A new one is available online but cash does not permit the purchase this month. Any thoughts? Cheers Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VaughnT Posted December 3, 2012 Share Posted December 3, 2012 That broken impeller has plenty of meat left on it to rivet a new fan blade. I'd use a beer can and cut out a shape close to the other blades. Maybe double it or triple it up for rigidity. Get origami on it! Then use some copper wire to rivet it to the hub. Worst case scenario..... it doesn't work and you're back to using that plastic travesty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Everything Mac Posted December 4, 2012 Author Share Posted December 4, 2012 Hadn't thought of riveting it. Worth a go. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Everything Mac Posted December 4, 2012 Author Share Posted December 4, 2012 Hi guys - I had the afternoon to play around with the blower today, I managed to rivet on a new blade - it works but it is far from pretty. I cleaned up the inside with wd40 and rags. put it all back together with some olive oil in there as that's all I had. It does about 2 revolutions now when the power is stopped. Much better than before. Had to build a ghetto forge today too. Just something to get me going at the new place and tide me over until I find a better alternative. Cheers guys Andy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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