Well after 4.5 years my fan started singing way too loudly - off key besides. So what to do? Being a cheap sob( ya I didn't want spring for a new fan) I figured replace bearings- ya well good thought but 1023 is not a standard size. The standard size bearing "608" is a 8mm bore with a 22mm OD and the AC30 shaft is 6.35mm( 1/4"), the 1023 is also 22mm od. Turns out that a stainless tube of 5/16" fits the bill of sleeving the 6.35mm shaft or looking the other way reducing the 8mm bearing bore to 6.35mm pretty dang close, all slip fits. Just a tad of crimp on the tube makes a friction fit on the shaft. Getting the old bearings off is a bit more involved as you will need 2 pieces of steel apx 1/8" thick and apx 1" wide to slip between the oem bearing and the armature( unless you have a puller with thin enough hooks an enough depth for th apx 5" of shaft) drill press will work to press shaft down out of bearing. A 3/16" drill bit ( or some kind of pin about an 1" long) can be used for the last little bit of travel to clear the shaft of the bearing ( I used my 12t "H" press- and a piece if piano wire- overkill) cut a couple 3/8" pieces of 5/16" tubing , de burr and bevel edges. Might have to tap the sleeves into the new bearings, just cause cutting off will likely distort things a bit. You want a sliding friction fit on the shaft easily obtained by a little crimp action from a pliers. Or if you real lucky you left a bit of burr on the inside the sleeve -same effect. Install new bearing assemblies on shaft. Slide them down to apx 1/8" from armature -not tight). re-assemble fan and motor. Total cost of fix for me was about $30- ( bearings $5 ea.) stainless tube was 3 ft $17 Note: there is a possibility that the bearing assemblies might migrate- some krazy glue on the shaft just before reassembling the motor ( just a very little bit right at the finale position of the bearing assembly) should negate that. Stay tuned , as I am not home and have to reassemble the fan for the acid test. It will be a couple hours before I get home.
Sorry so late a reply, somedays just don't work. Came home and promptly broke my glasses- need those to see up close( friggin old age) Any way forgot to say that the tubing used is a 22 gauge wall. After reinstalling the squirrel cages make sure that the bearings are properly seated in there cups- they will move too close to the armature and jam on the coil if not seated properly in the cups with a minimum of 1/8" clearance to the winding frame- once you have that set and do a test run then apply a tiny bit of lock tight or similar. When putting the cage back together make sure the bottom of the motor mount plate is seated as far in as the slotted screw holes will allow and the top out as far as possible this sets the exhaust of the blower in the proper area when the assembly is remounted to the rear heat shield. Be-careful not to pinch any wires of course. Really cant muck wiring up as the 2 connectors are keyed also the Ground wire(green ) is very short and where it is connected is not accessible once the 2 halves of the blower are put together. Another note on the bearings they are available sealed with metal covers on both sides or with a plastic. The plastic ones are what you want as then it is possible to carefully pop one side off flush out the bearing and re-grease ( use a high temp type) . Everything is up and running fine, ran it all night at max speed. So there is the fix for fried bearings. This type of fix just might work for possibly every blower assembly on our stoves- allowing for a variance of course in bearings and diameters. Now if you are one of those all thumbs or non-mechanical types contact me via the sight and we will see what we can work out regarding the AC30 - I do not know what is in the smaller blower motor that is being shipped with the NC30 now days.
