IH Cub cadet 383 $37 plastic fan dies in less than 40 feet!!!! RANT

[Tater]

NOT HAPPY

I think you might remember my last posts about the exspensive plastic fan meant to cool the hydro on my 383.

well while i had it apart, i took a look at some other things and noticed A) the pulley belt was way too short causing B) the pulley the fan was attached to to be worn loose around the shaft nearly destroying the woodruff key on the pump.

went to the cub store, and they wanted nearly $60 for a new pulley PLUS shipping. by this time I am getting peeved at these outrageous prices and go to the local hardware store to build a replacement. about $20

get it all together, get everything nice and snug, make sure there is plenty of clearance, runs it for a bit with the fender and tire off to make sure nothing is conflicting.

looks like i'm mowing lawn today. get the fender one, get the tire one, drive it out the back yard and I hear CRUNCH and see blades from my $37 plastic fan fly thru the air.

so frutstrated right now that i dont even WANT to tear it all apart to find out why. I WANT A D@MN METAL FAN.

[dpb]

I'm gonna' predict the worn pulley also wore the shaft and the key came loose leading to the destruction of the fan. Suspect a metal fan would have just gotten mangled and perhaps chopped up something else on its way as well...

[Tony Q.]

"Tater" wrote

You sound like my ex-brother-outlaw, always trying to jerry rig something.

Gary, is that you?

[Larry and a Cat named Dub]

[dpb]

Previous thread on the subject really didn't establish that the problem is at all related to an under-designed factory part -- it appeared from what Tater posted before he ran through a bunch of heavy brush and destroyed the fan that way before. This time he's indicated the pulley was worn to a very poor state and replaced it w/ something else -- it's pretty likely that repair didn't solve all the problems existing. That the tractor is 20+ years old probably has some bearing on the problems...

[Tater]

nope, when i rebuilt the pulley, I made sure the shaft was secure, and replaced the key.

I now have a 2 blade metal fan blade crudely installed. a $0.10 chunk of metal is lasting longer than the $37 fan blade. mower still overheats, but takes 2 hours instead of 20 minutes.

still dont see why it chewed up the fan. plans are underway to rig up a better metal fan using sections of metal pipe weled together.

[Tater]

not sure now, I would have agreed with you before, but.......

that was the first prognosis. now after chewing thru another one, rebuilding the worn pulley, making a metal fan blade out of a

7"x2"x1/8" piece of strap, bent to act crudely like a prop. and having limited sucess, I think the overpriced cheap plastic fan blade has a design flaw or two.

oh agreed! my rant was no more than 10 minutes from the desctruction of $37 worth of non-useable plastic with no other option in sight except to build my own replacement.

"limited success" means that i got it to work, replaced all the other parts someone else jury rigged on the mower, got to mow for about 2 hours before the transmission overheated. got my 1.4 acres mowed in less than a day and alsmost ran thru a tank of gas before something else became a problem

the new problem maybe when i replaced all the belts, i got some of the guides wrong, or maybe my jury rigged pulley aint perfect, or maybe my rigged fan is rubbing on the belt(real doubtfull). but i wore out a belt yesterday. not real worried, only $6, and i'll do some checking to see what was causing the problem. everything looked great, so I am guessing it is just a tiny adjustment i fouled up. please no comments, i think i got it figgured out

[dpb]

...

...

Well, the thing that puzzles me on that score is that if there were rampant early failures a manufacturer of the reputation of Cadet would have resolved it w/ a replacement part. That apparently they haven't makes me think the problem is all _that_ widespread so I'm left to conclude there's a problem w/ your particular machine...

...

Well what's the fun in that??? :)

After all, this is usenet and if we can't sit on the sidelines and either carp or smirk or offer useless advice/opinions, what's the point??? :)

Anyway, good luck...although did you look at some of the alternative metal fans on some of the other models to see if by chance one has the right pulley/shaft diameters and thickness? During the earlier exchange I did a search and found several of the same OD but didn't go further than that...