Kitchen exhaust fan rebuilt from 1950 ish

[Thomas]

Bought motor from amazon, ccw and an 8 inch prop 27 pitch from ebay to redo my old exhaust. Works great but is there a way to tell if it is balanced? The motor has a quarter inch D shaft to match the blades. I tightened all to look like the original, did not loctite anything. This is thru the outside wall, draw odor out. I hear a ghost click/drip sound that I have not heard in the 2 weeks since install. It may be my crappy hearing. Using a good flashlight I see no wobble but there is no way to tell if my torques are good. Any advice? I do not want a finger sliced off testing. It is turned on by chain pull that also opens the outside cover.

Wow, I feel this is a Mickey post. No offense.

[micky]

Oh, no offense taken. Hahaha. I write great posts. It's only the readers who can't appreciate them.

In this case, can you put your finger on the motor to feel any vibration and not come close to the blade. I guess you are saying no, but in that case use a stick. Use a long one so that you can put your ear next to the end. It's amazing what you can hear that way.

They even sell automotive -- I forget the word, doctors use them to listen to a patient's heart. It's just a thin metal stick with a connection to one's ears. You can probably hear even more that way but a stick does a lot too. Try it on your car's engine. You can tell if the alternator bearing is bad, etc.

[Thomas]

First thing i used was a stick. Wooden spoon. I may need to take it down and somehow bench test it. No odd noise this morning. Running from 3 am to now at 4..45.

[micky]

Stethoscope!!

So what did you hear with the spoon?

[Thomas]

Nothing. Glad nobody was watching.

[invalid unparseable]

It is called a stethoscope. I have a very old one left over from wife's pregnancy days.

[gfretwell]

It should be pretty easy to feel in the blade is loose on the shaft. I haven't had a fan like that since I lived in an apartment back in the

60s but I don't remember them being any kind of precision equipment. I remember mine made a helluva racket. The motors have oilite bronze bushings and they can get pretty sloppy or sometimes they gum up and bind up. I used to squirt Freon TF contact cleaner in mine (actually the landlord's) to get it going, a squirt of machine oil, then it rattled. I left it running 24/7 tho. I didn't pay for the heat or the electricity and I liked the fresh air.

[Thomas]

Not easy. Need to turn kitchen breaker off downstairs. The motor is attached to the inside cover. The plug is 5 inches between the cover and the motor. If I go outside where the blades spin it must be on because of the pull chain inside. So... I need to kill the power, unscrew the inside wall cover, unplug, remove the chain pull then take a look. At that point the cover, motor and blades will be in one piece with the outside cover open. This is a big 12 inch square opening with no duct pipe like modern vents. Need to wait for time change in the Spring season for extra sunlight. Cannot keep up and down to breaker with walking handicap. On now with no noise. Could be my imagination but something is amiss.

Having a beer with a klodike bar. Good enough.