Safety around the fan blade

[The kid]

Sometimes things happen. My 135 obviously at one time had been worked on my previous owners. The fan cooling shrowd was abit off center. I have been refurbishing mine for the past four months. I kept hearing a dinging noise comming from around a radiator and first thought I had a headlight harness wire hanging down and dinging the fan. I cut off the engine and couldn't find anything. I drive it back to the garage and look further. Seems the bottom of the fan showd has hitting the fan as I increased RPM's. I finally had to take the radiator off to make some adjustments to the shrowd. Now it clears. The problem is the fan is black along with the radiator and shinning a light I couldn't see how close the fan was too the shrown. Then I got to thinking about airplanes.

Propellors spin and if where painted black are invisible while spinning. So to be able to see the prop, they painted the tips yellow. I thought why can't I do this on my fan. I already had the radiator off. So I took some acrylic enamel and taped off the blades and gave each a shot of yellow. It looks like an airplane prop now but is very visible while running and a good reminder where not to put a finger. Your thoughts and safety tips. -kid

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[Kubotafan]

Sometimes things happen. My 135 obviously at one time had been worked on my previous owners. The fan cooling shrowd was abit off center. I have been refurbishing mine for the past four months. I kept hearing a dinging noise comming from around a radiator and first thought I had a headlight harness wire hanging down and dinging the fan. I cut off the engine and couldn't find anything. I drive it back to the garage and look further. Seems the bottom of the fan showd has hitting the fan as I increased RPM's. I finally had to take the radiator off to make some adjustments to the shrowd. Now it clears. The problem is the fan is black along with the radiator and shinning a light I couldn't see how close the fan was too the shrown. Then I got to thinking about airplanes.

Propellors spin and if where painted black are invisible while spinning. So to be able to see the prop, they painted the tips yellow. I thought why can't I do this on my fan. I already had the radiator off. So I took some acrylic enamel and taped off the blades and gave each a shot of yellow. It looks like an airplane prop now but is very visible while running and a good reminder where not to put a finger. Your thoughts and safety tips. -kid

View attachment 313281

That should help it fly!!!!

 

[Whatswrong]

I thought you posted that for me ,even though I have posted a couple threads recently about being carefull fan blades have a magnet that pulls me in.Twice in 18 months I put my fingers and thumb in the fan on my 434 testing to see if the lower radiator hose was warming up. I have some material to build a shield before it happens again.

 

[mjncad]

Good idea.

 

[The kid]

I thought you posted that for me ,even though I have posted a couple threads recently about being carefull fan blades have a magnet that pulls me in.Twice in 18 months I put my fingers and thumb in the fan on my 434 testing to see if the lower radiator hose was warming up. I have some material to build a shield before it happens again.

My Massey Ferguson 135 has a fan shroud. As I stated it would occasionally hit at the bottom but I couldn't see where. I fly model Airplanes is where I came up with the idea. Sorry, I didn't see your other post. I did however remove the radiator and cut a small portion at the bottom so the fan could clear without hitting. The shrowd had splits at that section so removing a portion only kept it from springing back into the fan and didn't effect airflow. -kid

 

[texasjohn]

great idea!

 

[npalen]

Reminds me of running my thumb between the belt and generator pulley on my '57 chevy back in the high school days. Don't remember exactly what I was doing at the time but remember it took very little time to happen. Amazingly it didn't break a bone or even lacerate deeply but sure hurt like the devil. I figured either the thumb had to rotate about 120 degrees by itself or the hand absorbed some of the rotation.

 

[tcreeley]

A tourist passing through in a camper stopped to check his fanbelt. His hair got caught and pulled him in. The fan blade took his head off. Happened over 25 years ago further north.

 

[lakeside]

My brother in law had a small business repairing starters and alternators. One day he was finishing up installing an alternator with the driver sitting in the car. There was mis-communications and the driver tried to start the car. My brother in law lost the tip of his right index finger!

Years ago I was working with explosives. The hard rule is you never, ever left the key for the exploder in the machine unless you were actually going to set off the charge. Two workers forgot the rule to keep the key in their pocket and went forward to do a last inspection of the firing circuit. Somebody yelled "fire" and the only thing that saved them was only the blasting caps were on the circuit. Still, they got peppered with shrapnel and one lost an eardrum.

Moral of the story, if you're working on electricity, lock the circuit out. With machinery, keep the key in your pocket!

 

[lakeside]

My brother in law had a small business repairing starters and alternators. One day he was finishing up installing an alternator with the driver sitting in the car. There was mis-communications and the driver tried to start the car. My brother in law lost the tip of his right index finger!

Years ago I was working with explosives. The hard rule is you never, ever left the key for the exploder in the machine unless you were actually going to set off the charge. Two workers forgot the rule to keep the key in their pocket and went forward to do a last inspection of the firing circuit. Somebody yelled "fire" and the only thing that saved them was only the blasting caps were on the circuit. Still, they got peppered with shrapnel and one lost an eardrum.

Moral of the story, if you're working on electricity, lock the circuit out. With machinery, keep the key in your pocket!