Thought about it after dismantling a tower computer a few years back, but ended up throwing the fan out.
Over the past few decades, I have pulled out furnace blower motors that have stopped working during the night and dismantled/cleaned them in the hopes of breathing a little more life into them. First time was an oil furnace at a house I bought.........next to a barrel wood stove! Wow, its amazing that thing turned at all! Hats off to those burners that put cleaning their wood stove blower annually!
Most of the fans I've seen for computers are too low cfm, and have plastic frames. The plastic frame issue is probably the biggest one
After 7 years, I can't believe it still turns at all! That thing is gonna be packed up with dust n junk pretty bad, especially so if you have pets. Have a shop vac or some sort of vacuum device ready because when you hit it with that canned air, you are gonna have a real mess...if you can get it off and take it outside that would be preferable. Lube the bearings with a drop or two of actual oil (not WD-40 type lube) before you put it back in service. You will notice that it moves much more air afterwards! The dwindling airflow kinda sneaks up on you. I switched from a standard stove to an insert stove because of being able to service the blower much easier...the stove had to be removed from the fireplace to service it...the insert stove has the blower on the front. My blower often starts to vibrate before the end of the heating season...and vibration is the first sign it has buildup in it and it needs cleaned.
Probably the easiest oil to get that's correct is the 3 in 1 oil in the BLUE can, not the red can. It's 20w non detergent oil. The red is 10w and with some heat becomes to thin. If you have a "C frame" motor (the open type with the single bobbin coil) with no oil holes take the 2 screws holding the bearings on and slip them off. You will typically see the felt wick then. Soak it and reassemble.
My brother in law did this a few years ago in his WT chimera. Got ash and sparks every where... He's a bit like that with everything
NS I want to thank you for starting this thread. I am embarrassed to say that I had not pulled the blower on the Lopi 1750i insert in the 6 years it has been installed. Today I pulled it, cleaned it out and oiled the bearings. Wow! Forgot how quiet it was. Also blowing a significantly higher volume of air. It was ridiculously easy even for someone as un-mechanical as me. So again, thanks for the inspiration.
My new blower for my insert is on the way from Utah. Once it gets here I'll have to install new bearings at my leisure on the old blower so it's ready to swap out the next time.
I really like my JOTUL insert, but my one complaint has been the blower. Now that I have the freestanding wood stove I'm not using the insert nearly as much. And the freestanding stove has no blower, but puts out way more heat.
We have freestanders up north and while the do kick azz in terms of radiant heat, they tend to overheat the room without the blower moving the air. Ones a Vermont casting and the other is a jotul.. I don't know what models they are ... Both are only used for the one or two weeks we spend up there in winter.
Always nice to have a spare waiting in the wings. Couple years ago I bought a zero clearance pump just so I had a backup in the sump pump were to fail...sure glad that I have it... We have had a few rain storms in late winter that will create a pool on our patio if there is snow piled around the edges... Slap our pump in there and it's empty in a half hour
