So, I opened the pool the other day and fired up the heater.

[danpik]

Sounded like a kids bike with playing cards in the spokes. That and a bunch of rusty stuff coming out of the exhaust. Hmmm, I know what this means.

I pulled the blower off and this is what I see... New assembly is around $350 bucks on line


No fins, all that is left is the disk.

Out to the shop I go. Found an old draft inducer with a bad housing (Did not take any pictures of it)but a good fan. Bad news, the fan is crimped on. Since it was the only one I had I drilled out the shaft and got the fan off of it.


Of course with the rust the old fan, or whats left of it will not come off. The set screw is stripped to top it off. I chucked it up in the mill and went to town. I figured if I could mill the screw off I could get the plate off.


Plate came off with a bit of a struggle. But, it did come off. I had to clean up the shaft a bit.


Now to solve the bigger part of the problem. The replacement fan did not have a set screw provision as it was a crimped on affair. I was not sure I could get a drill bit down to the boss to drill and tap a hole. It turns out I was able to drill and (just) tap the hole for the screw.


All fixed and ready to re-install. I used a cap screw instead of a set screw as, 1 i did not have a 10-32 set screw handy and 2, I wanted something to get vice grips on the next time I have to remove this thing.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Lord we do love a handy guy!!

 

[pooldv]

Yet another fine example that we must always maintain a good parts inventory!

 

[ps0303]

I've tried to remove the squirrel cages on several motors but had no success. So I just replace the entire thing instead of burning up time. I know this was your personal heater so you had the time to mess with it.

 

[danpik]

I've tried to remove the squirrel cages on several motors but had no success. So I just replace the entire thing instead of burning up time. I know this was your personal heater so you had the time to mess with it.

110% with you on this. It is also helpful to have a well equipped machine shop at your disposal.

I would never do this for a customer as the billable time would be more than the price of the new part ($350). In fact for this heater, I would have recommended the customer buy a new heater as these H100Id's are fairly cheap to begin with. As for getting the cages off, most can't be done without damage to parts. Most of these are crimped onto the shafts as was the donor fan. I was actually surprised that the bad fan was on the shaft with a set screw. I change out about 20 inducers/year on home heaters and none of them ever have set screws. Too bad too as most of the time the only thing bad is the motor which could be changed out easily. This particular donor had a good motor and fan. The housing, high temp plastic, was warped and cracked and would not set the vacuum switch. Not really sure why I kept it either. maybe divine intervention?

The good news is, the heater fired right up and ran fine last night (happy wife=happy life:grin. In fact I think it is running smoother now than it was before.