We had a 4 or 5 day warm spell so I took advantage of the stove down time to work on one of my insert blowers. It had started to make a little noise. I should have done this in the Fall but……I didn’t. I haven’t seen this process on the internet anywhere so I thought I’d show what I do for bearings that start to make some noise. I’m too cheap to just automatically shell out $200 each and replace both blowers in my insert. Pardon my dirty fingernails but I got into a little soot while removing the blower. My blowers are Jakel brand but I’m guessing they are all pretty similar. Start by removing the impellers by taking off the clamps and pulling the impeller out. This may be the most difficult part of the whole operation but here is how I figured out how to do it. I drill a couple of evenly spaced holes in the impeller to allow me to thread a U shaped wire in from the backside. The clamp the wire ends in a vice so I can pull down on the shroud. The wire lets me pull with even pressure on both sides of the impeller. IMPORTANT—pay attention to the orientation of the impeller blades so the impeller is installed correctly during reassembly. Remove the impellers from both sides. Then I remove the 4 screws holding the shroud on with a 1/4” nut driver. Remove shrouds from both sides. With the shrouds removed, you can now remove the 2 longer screws that hold the 2 halves of the frame together. With the 2 halves apart, you can remove the shaft. The bearings are pressed on the shaft and stay on the shaft. Leave the rubber cups in the frame halves. Each side also has a Belleville washer in each cup, don’t lose those. With a small pick you can carefully pry up the side of the dust cover seal to expose the ball bearings. Notice how dirty one of the seals is with old sticky and gummy grease. At this point use some solvent to melt the old grease. I like Berrymans Chemtool and Quicksiver Powertune. Spin the bearing to rotate the balls and to work out the old grease. Use Q tips and shop towels to remove the grease. Repeat the process until you’re comfortable that you got out all that you can. Look at all of the old dirty grease that came out! When you’re comfortable that you got all of the grease out that you can, you can pack in some new grease. I used white lithium grease. Just use you finger to push some new grease in. Spin the bearing to distribute the grease. Be careful not to press too much grease in there as it will create unnecessary drag. Clean up the dust seals and reinstall. At this point you can begin to reassemble the motor. Tighten the 2 long screws evenly so the shaft doesn’t bind. When the 2 halves are together, I like to apply some electricity to make sure it spins okay. If it spins okay, reinstall the shrouds and impellers. Make sure the impellers are oriented in the same direction as when you disassembled so that air blows out properly. Reinstall the mounting grommets and put the blower back in the insert. At this point you can spend the $400 you saved on a new saw!
