Berlingo fan heater

ok, now winter is drawing nearer, the fan in my trusty Berlingo has decided its had enuff and wants to hang up its boots and retire to the countryside.. it starts when it wants to, but when it does it has a sorta "whirr whirr (repeat)..." noise coming from it..

my question is, are fans expensive? and are they a big job to replace? as I cant see any other way into it except by removing the dash :(

Keith

Reply to
Keith
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countryside..

Don't know the cost of a new fan, but by the sound of it all it needs is a couple of pence worth of oil on the bearings - if you can get to them.

Reply to
Brian

That would most like totally finish off the motor, most of these motor bearing are made from self lubricating materials, designed *not* to be oiled!

Reply to
:Jerry:

Sounds like it might have something foreign in it. Leaves are a good suspect at this time of year. Try putting it on full blast for a while and see if anything shifts.

TonyB

Reply to
TonyB

I have no experience of Berlingos but my Xantia fan used to do the same thing. Often a hefty thump to the underside of the dashboard in the vicinity of the glovebox restarted it. I traced it to a loose connector block and spent some time cleaning and tightening connectors. It would occasionally fail after that but some switch cleaner on the connectors usually sorted things out. I was tempted to solder direct to the terminals but it never got that bad again before I sold it.

Reply to
malc

Agree that most are "sealed for life", but most also in my experience are metal bearings, often that compressed stuff, which are porous, and soaked in lubricant on assembly. This dries out in time, hence the application of a little more oil. Have done it many times. If the motor is stuffed anyway, what is there to lose? The only type which would not work with oil would be a nylon type bearing.

Reply to
Brian

What is there to loose? The vehicle if the motor should catch fire?! There is a difference between 'oilable' bearings and bearings designed not to be oiled, a lot depends on the design of the motor not just the bearing.

Reply to
:Jerry:

The message from "Brian" contains these words:

Sintered bronze is what you're groping for!

Reply to
Guy King

Exactly.

Reply to
Brian

Of course it might also detonate that thermo-nuclear device that is built into the fan motors on all these french cars, and take out the city too.

The motor if siezed, is more likely to catch fire in its current state.

Reply to
Brian

I blame the altzheimers, one pint too many and your memory goes.

Reply to
Brian

When f*cked, troll....

Or, more likely, just blow a fuse...

Reply to
:Jerry:

In your case, one thimble full...

Reply to
:Jerry:

The message from "Brian" contains these words:

Or, as I heard it called a while ago in a wonderful malapropism, "Oldtimers' disease".

You can juggle with the apostrophes in that to your hearts' content. (this comment was addressed to several people, hence the apostrophe after the s, not before)

Reply to
Guy King

Which is also what it would do as you so rightly say if the bearing was oiled and should not have been. Foot - bang - ouch.

Reply to
Brian

No it would not, why would a fuse blow when the motor is running normally, the problem with oil is because the motor armature is flinging any excess oil about, they atomise fuel oil in boilers etc to make it burn more easily, whilst worn armature bushes are well known for arcing...

Reply to
:Jerry:

The message from ":Jerry:" contains these words:

How much oil are we talking about, here?

Reply to
Guy King

That depends on how ham-fisted the person is, more than you or I would use Guy though...

Reply to
:Jerry:

Agreed, if you were to immerse the whole thing in oil then it could be a tad excessive, but since most of us are not that stupid....... I have probably had more experience in this than many over my lifetime, and found that a couple of drops of the correct grade of oil can work wonders. That way it never gets near any commutator, so will be no problem. Perhaps if I lubricated it with easystart, or similar, or brake fluid even. That's probably the most volatile fluid on a car these days.

Reply to
Brian

Want a bet on that, with 30 odd years in the trade believe me, some people are stupid enough to put excusive mounts of freeing oils on things.

Don't forget that many of these heater motors are cited were dead leaves and combustible dust can collect, it's not so much the oil catching fire but smouldering oil setting fire to debris that has collected.

Reply to
:Jerry:

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