MCS Blower failure

[ATCtech]

The bearings in the fan impeller assembly of my X540 14 bushel bagger's blower failed so miserably yesterday that smoke streamed out of it for nearly 20 minutes. The impeller still turns, not completely freely, but it's far from jammed. Unfortunately it's also not turning in a linear plane, so it's going to need (I'm guessing) pretty much everything from shafts and keys to both bearings.

I'm wondering if it's worth fixing or seeing if the dealer will cut me any sort of a deal on replacing it. This is only it's 4th fall of leaf collecting and in total the blower has probably been in use no more than 15 hours of the machine's 135 hour total. Pretty lame.

Bob

 

[beenthere]

Is this the Power Flow?
Bearings are not hard to change out. I wouldn't run it until it is fixed. Things just get worse and problems multiply.

I'm still running the same Power Flow now for 15 years. Finally did wear out the impeller and wore a hole in the side of the housing. They can take a beating when there are a lot of sticks to grind up and blow through the housing.

 

[ATCtech]

Yes, it's the blower for the Power Flow 14 bushel bagger. I've pulled it apart and the impeller has melted and badly distorted at it's hub which explains why it doesn't rotate in a flat plane. One bearing is seized completely. My guess is that something suddenly jammed the impeller causing a rapid rise in temperature although the noise level or sound from the blower never changed when it began to smoke. There's no doubt the shaft continued to spin with the impeller stopped.

Bob