Fasco Hassock Fan Motor Questions

[Todd Adornato]

Hi folks,

I’ve been working on the motor from a hassock fan; it’s a Fasco Model No. 4A1DD-9U (see pic) with the shaft extending upward when it’s installed.   I’d like to remove the upper end cap where the shaft exits so I can remove the rotor for general cleaning and checking of the head wires.  I have a couple questions relating to the oil filler tubes sticking out through both end caps.  First - are they supposed to be angled downward?  I’d think they should be angled upward to retain oil.  Second - how are the filler tubes attached to the bearing housings?  Are they a press fit, or are they screwed in?   It looks like they have to be removed in order to remove the end caps - correct?   Thanks in advance!

[Todd Adornato]

It seems Fasco meant for the fan to be turned upside down to be oiled, as the motor is mounted on the underside of the conical base, so upturned oiler tubes would have been pointing at the walls of the base.  Hence the downturned tubes. 

Does anyone know how the tubes are fitted into the bearing housings?  I’m wondering how the end caps of the motor, through which the tubes pass, can be removed with the tubes in place. 

[Levi Mevis]

I have a later version of this motor, and the oil filler tubes are part of the bearing housing, and the whole endcaps remove, along with the oiler tubes.

Just use a smaller flat blade screw driver and hammer and hit the edge of the end bells of the motor until the end bells separate from the stator. 

[Todd Adornato]

Levi, thank you!  That makes perfect sense. 

[Levi Mevis]

On 8/13/2024 at 12:21 PM, Todd Adornato said:

Levi, thank you!  That makes perfect sense. 

No Problem! The motor I have like this (but is a little later version) came out of an old Fresh'nd Aire Hassock Fan from the 1950s (the one that looks like an old wooden barrel that is 4 speeds) that the motor was still good but the speed coil was shorted. The Funny thing is that I found two of those old Fresh'nd Aire Hassock fans within a few weeks of each other and they both unfortunately had the same issue of a shorted speed coil, was that a common issue with these old Fresh'nd Aire Hassock Fans?

[Todd Adornato]

Update to this thread:  I’m now working with another Fasco motor and blade combo (no housing or switch) -the motor looks just like the one I first posted in this thread, only it’s robins-egg blue instead of black, and the blades are bare aluminum, and there are no external oiler tubes; the tubes on this motor end at the opening on the housing, so I’m guessing this second motor is a later issue with cost-cutting features.  Same screen-painted logo and wiring schematic, though. 

I was able to remove the end caps (thanks again, Levi) and extract the rotor to clean out all the dust bunnies and grime of more than half a century.  It looked like no one had bothered or known how to oil the motor, as there were slight scorch marks on the shaft, and several of the thin black fiber washers were cracked.  Once I replaced the washers with a similar-sized stack of fresh fiber washers (front and rear) and added plenty of oil, the motor ran a lot smoother.

Two questions.  First, do these motors normally run hot?   I was holding the motor on the work bench while it ran on High with the blades, and after five minutes the bare metal between the end caps got very hot, almost too hot to hold.  The windings looked to be in excellent shape, but does the heat mean they’re fried?  Should I spray insulating varnish on them?

Second, has anyone ever seen these painted numbers on the rotor?  They go from 1 to 17.  First time for me, so I wondered what they meant. 

 

Edited September 21, 2024 by Todd Adornato
Wrong word

[Levi Mevis]

Looks to me like they were numbering the individual bars in the rotor for Quality Control purposes.

Also Shaded Pole Motors like these do run hot, that's the nature of them because they are not very efficient motors so some of the energy that is used in the motor while it's running is lost as heat. 

Edited September 26, 2024 by Levi Mevis

[Todd Adornato]

Levi, thanks for the comments.   I wondered if they had numbered the bars when I first saw the markings, but there seem to be more numbers than bars, so I was scratching my head.  Have you seen this before?

Makes sense the shaded pole motors would run hot, but I was a bit unsure since this one gets hot.   As long as that’s normal, I won’t fret over it.