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They seem the same based on appearance from bottom.

Tesla restored for Ron Jeter by Mike Petree.

David Dimitrion posted in past switches.

Switch image borrowed from Antique Fan Parts Tesla listing.

Original condition pictures

No use of the word LIST, yet the tags appear to fit same time period.

Hi all! I just replaced the electrical cord on this beautiful 16” GE. I hadn’t run the fan in quite sometime because of the dangerous state of the old cord. I did have the fan on its side on the work bench resting on the motor. There was some rotational movement of the motor when I moved it around on the bench. When I started the fan up it started shaking dangerously and the blades began hitting the cage so I unplugged it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! (I tried to add a photo but couldn’t upload it)

Is your switch missing some screws/contacts/wiring, Anthony? Compare the photos. Could be what is creating this strange issue?

Yeah….agree. The portion size is getting pretty bad. Heater TINY as is the chicken. See my comment above lol. Yeah…heard the new ceo is more of a dei hire more interested in changing it up to meet the times or whatever. Sad indeed.

What others said above. Blue 3in1 is the best easiest to get (ace hardware etc). But I find that I can smell it when a fan’s been running a. While. Not terrible. But I do like that it’s 20wt and not 10 like the zoom. I’ve yet to try any 30wt. As for balancing….quick and dirty method is to try to do it on the cage that way you can use your finger on the cage ;front and then back and back and forth until you get it right) as a sort of “depth gauge”. There’s a good few videos on YouTube. I made a simple jig to hold a pencil (eraser end). But finger works. Sure…a strobe light is ideal…but you can get it pretty good without.

UPDATE I have since sold the GE ceiling fan at the PA meet last weekend

It's partly a matter of person preference on what oil and grease to use, but these are my usual "go to" products. If you use the 3 in 1, it's important to use the blue can and NOT the red one. Unfortunately, Jeff is very likely right about the blades being out of balance. But just to be sure, I'd recommend removing the blades just to make sure the the set screw is properly aligned with the divot in the shaft and the set screw is very tight. That is likely not the problem - but wow if it is, you'll save yourself a lot of time and frustration compared to straightening the blade. Unless you have a strobe light and know how to use it to straighten/balance blades, I recommend trying to adjust them while on the fan. Assuming the cage is straight, you can use it, along with a tape measure or even your finger to find out which blade(s) are bent too far forward or backward. If the blades are out of clock, that's a different issue entirely. Just looking at yours from the photo, they don't appear to be out of clock. Your fan appears to be in very nice condition. With a little cleaning and polishing, it will be stunning! Those 16-inch Vortys are impressive running fans.

Pictures and a video of switch at the end. I see the spacer moving as the switch touches it. Could that be issue? 20250705_094955.mp4

Well...... When I pull back a couple millimeters the fan runs at 1.4 amps at the same speed as when the switch in all the way pulling the 3 amps. Once I pull the switch halfway back it drops to around .9 amps and runs on low. So it has 2 completely different speeds, Hi and Low so I don't think it is dropping half the coils on "High" as there would not be a lower speed once I pull the switch back to the middle where I do get a nice low speed. The fan runs nice and smooth and cool on both Hi and Low as long as the switch isn't all the way to the very end.

I agree with Russ, look at the design of the switch. When you have the switch in the high speed position its pulling 3amps. If you back off a bit and the amps drop to half, you are dropping out one set of coils and running on half of the motor. Thats interesting and seems pretty good to me, how is the temperature during a long run? If its moving air and not heating up, that might be a good feature. And the amps are reasonable for that coil so i dont think its harming it. I'm attaching my wiring notes for the tesla, it highlights how a set of coils can drop out if both jumpers are slightly out of sync.

Hmmm. I mean….im a hardcore road tripper. I drive lots for work, and drove three hours one way some months ago to get my minty 77 pedestal. The price on this is great…but I’m always concerned when something looks like it’s been monkeyed (“restored”) with somewhat (ie- brass polished etc). Don’t know what else they might’ve done (hack job doing a headwire maybe?). I dunno….if it was very orignal looking, nice soft patina, I’d probably def be more inclined to drive that. Of course that’s only about $50 in gas for me in the Pontiyota ViBeater. But still….its a good deal for sure.

I would be tempted to check out the two contact positions on the porcelain terminals at the 1.4 position as opposed to the high position. What are those lever contacts touching in those positions to that 4-wire head cord.

Good info!

Here you go, now you can frame the great day tag to cheer you up for the future when you have a bad fan purchase day. That's how it works, some deals are awesome, and some deals can bite. But it all evens out in the long haul. 🙂 I only owned one of those way back. And my speeds worked backwards, and my numbers read Off - 1 - 2 - 3. Fact Jack. 🙂

Speaking of buying things from under collector's noses, I just picked all this stuff up from sellers that lived less than 15 minutes away from several collectors. Everything was just $10 more than the Emerson in this post...

Ahhh….well this was about an hour and a half north where I’m working so…it evaded the local Stl collector crowd lol .

Looks to be another Emerson. 77648?

Marc, How come all the fans I see in antique malls are beat up modern plastic fans for ridiculous prices??? I need to start going to your church. There is another fan in the photo, just the right edge visible. What was that one?