Jump to content
I Forge Iron

Picked up my first blower tonight


Donniev

Recommended Posts

Any information anyone has about this would be appreciated. Guy I know had it sitting on his farm that's been in the family since the late 1800s, 2.5" opening- it blows air right now just fine, figured I'd probably take it apart to grease everything and figure out how to properly mount it, I'll be golden

"Champion blower and force co. Lancaster, PA

Patented April 15 1902, June 11 and July 30 1901" 

IMG_20170328_213232091.jpg

IMG_20170328_213208452.jpg

IMG_20170328_213159345.jpg

IMG_20170328_213151399.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Donniev, that's a Champion 400. Do a search under the Bellows section here, lots of good information already posted. If it turns smoothly without a lot of grinding noise, there's really no reason to take it apart and you may do more harm than good by taking it apart. They can be finicky to put back together to get the proper alignment that has worn in over 100 years of service. No grease required, add a little oil occasionally and it will splash around to lube everything.

If you do choose to open it up, the top cover has two screws. Remove those and SLIDE the cover toward the back of the gear housing. SLIDE back, do not pry up or you will break the casting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't grease her.. She's an oil eater..  Grease would just mess things up..   ideally you want an oil compatible with Worm gears.. I use Mobil SHC 460, though a lighter weight would work very well. 

 

That's the little sister to the 400..  Same gear box, just smaller housing.. At least that's the way ti looks in the pictures.. 

 

Nice blower by the way.. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the info JME just got everything wire wheeled and noticed the 400 today. I'll get some oil in it and paint it this weekend probably, going to take a week or two to figure out how exactly I want to mount it next to my forge, I've got a few small upgrades to give my forge anyway

IMG_20170329_190137913.jpg

IMG_20170329_190156729.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

These are the 9" and mounted direct to the forge. They are not intended to mount on the factory stand. You can and i have, used this blower as a free-standing unit next to a large cast iron free-standing forge. The difficulty is connecting the air duct to these as they have a very small flange. Unlike the 12-14-16 inch blowers, which have a larger flange intended to connect the air pipe. I made a mating flange on the end of a section of 3" exhaust pipe and used a v-band clamp from a turbo flange to connect the pipe to blower flange outlet. That way; I have a short section of 3"pipe to connect the flex pipe onto. I cannot tolerate duct tape.

The disassembly of these can be harrowing.  If you dont have specific instructions. These employ ball bearings and the inner/outter races wear and become rust pitted. They can be quite  noisey. Replacing the balls is not a problem. But races  are not available. 

They are not intended to hold oil. Light machine oil is fine. Not a gear lube. I literally use diesel fuel with some engine oil mixed into it.

You can make a clamp from two opposing  sections of angle iron. 1/2" I think.......

Be happy to send some pics but most of them were stolen from me. Along with my phone. I should have some pics  on my laptop at the garage. 

Search YouTube  for restoring these 400 blowers.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Make sure you check the fan blades on the impeller. I had one that two of the blades were missing and the impeller was out of balance. Easy to rivet on new blades copied from the existing ones. The other identical blower had one piece blades with a lot of crud on them, a good cleaning solved the out of balance problem.

Another thing I noticed on my blowers is which direction they like to be turned. One runs smooth turning it clockwise but chatters when turned counter clockwise the other is the exact opposite running smooth when turned counterclockwise. I figure that after decades of use the gears get a set depending on the rotation the blower was used.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...