Post by organist89 on May 20, 2007 1:48:52 GMT -5
I recently got two 52" 4-blade 2-speed chestnut brown R&M Originals from Adrian on eBay. Very nice fans, thank you Adrian.
Anyhow, I put one up, and--not having any fan oil handy and being broke at the time--I loaded 'er up with Crisco vegetable oil (the kind you fry stuff in).
At first, no problems. I mentioned that I had done this to Brian Hicks, and he said that he had done it once before and it didn't work out so well--the rotor got all gunky.
Well, it's been about a month or so, and now's when the sh**'s hit the fan (or, more accurately, the fan is full of sh**).
Being one of the 2-speed Originals, it isn't designed to go slowly. The speeds are high and medium. The "low" speed was added to later models via the use of a capacitor (after they went from shaded pole to permanent split capacitor motors).
Well, on the slower of its two speeds, this thing is *crawling*--it's exactly the same speed as "low" on a 3-speed...i.e. about 65 RPM. It should be doing double that.
This fan is hooked up to a wall switch, and when I flip the switch off, the blades stop almost immediately--no nice, slow winding down process. But the fan isn't making any noise, and the blades aren't really all that hard to turn by hand...still, the fan is full of gunk.
I went to Lowe's and got some tubes of Hunter fan oil (they have some NOS tubes from the 80's, btw). First, I took the pipe cleaner and put it in the top of the oil reservoir, just like you're supposed to. Any guesses what's in there? Burnt-smelling brown sludge, the exact color of brownie batter and twice as thick. This stuff is like glue.
I've filled the fan up, to overflowing, with new oil, and I'm running it in hopes of loosening up the sludge and just being able to flush it out with new oil. Barring that, I'll have no choice but to go through the pain-in-the-derriere process of taking the fan down, disassembling it, and cleaning it properly.
Just a word to the wise: don't think you can do it and get away with it. All oils are not created equally.
Anyhow, I put one up, and--not having any fan oil handy and being broke at the time--I loaded 'er up with Crisco vegetable oil (the kind you fry stuff in).
At first, no problems. I mentioned that I had done this to Brian Hicks, and he said that he had done it once before and it didn't work out so well--the rotor got all gunky.
Well, it's been about a month or so, and now's when the sh**'s hit the fan (or, more accurately, the fan is full of sh**).
Being one of the 2-speed Originals, it isn't designed to go slowly. The speeds are high and medium. The "low" speed was added to later models via the use of a capacitor (after they went from shaded pole to permanent split capacitor motors).
Well, on the slower of its two speeds, this thing is *crawling*--it's exactly the same speed as "low" on a 3-speed...i.e. about 65 RPM. It should be doing double that.
This fan is hooked up to a wall switch, and when I flip the switch off, the blades stop almost immediately--no nice, slow winding down process. But the fan isn't making any noise, and the blades aren't really all that hard to turn by hand...still, the fan is full of gunk.
I went to Lowe's and got some tubes of Hunter fan oil (they have some NOS tubes from the 80's, btw). First, I took the pipe cleaner and put it in the top of the oil reservoir, just like you're supposed to. Any guesses what's in there? Burnt-smelling brown sludge, the exact color of brownie batter and twice as thick. This stuff is like glue.
I've filled the fan up, to overflowing, with new oil, and I'm running it in hopes of loosening up the sludge and just being able to flush it out with new oil. Barring that, I'll have no choice but to go through the pain-in-the-derriere process of taking the fan down, disassembling it, and cleaning it properly.
Just a word to the wise: don't think you can do it and get away with it. All oils are not created equally.
