At 01:52 PM 4/8/2013, Stuart MacMillan wrote:
>It's so loud and high pitched that it's painful to use the blower, even with
>my reduced hearing.  But, as I continue to, it's becoming less frequent.  Do
>these things ever fix themselves?  It's probably  dry bearing or worn
>commutator/brushes, but with only 140k on it (an '85) it doesn't seem like
>it should be worn out since my '84 worked fine for 20 years and 225k.

It's screaming in pain, man!  Yes, it's a dry bearing, and it can
only get worse as you run it (but maybe better as the weather warms
up).  The only proper fix is to pull it and either properly lubricate
or replace the blower, but you may be able to stretch it out for a
long time using Karl Mullendore's trick of drilling a hole (or as I
did, two holes together, one to sight through) in the front sheet
metal so you can squirt TriFlow or some other high quality lube onto
the rear motor bearing which is the one that takes the brunt of
it.  Search theSamba for the Mullendore Port, look in our archives
for my posts on how to disassemble and lube the blower (assuming you
haven't wrecked the bearing by running it too long), and look in
picasaweb.google.com/dbeierl/ for photos of the blower motor
internals showing what needs lubing.

If you're going to replace the blower, which is certainly the
conventional wisdom, be advised that Meyle blowers have been reported
to be very noisy on speeds one, two, or both.  I used one to replace
the toasted motor shown in my photos and certainly would never again,
although the user said she didn't care.

Dennis Haynes is a strong advocate of always replace.  The several
seized motors I've rejuvenated, however, have had very little
commutator and brush wear, and simply needed freeing up and
re-lubing, and all worked fine for years after.  This is not a
painless process however as you'll see if you read my description of
it.  Disassembly and reassembly of the blower must be done correctly
or you'll wreck it.

Yours,
David