Personal fan restore for my Land Rover 109

     This project started in Oct of 2021. I had 2 fans of unknown manufacture, trying a few online searches I found they were in 1950's+ cars and Pullman rail cars. 

     As you can see they were in bad shape from age, mostly causing the rubber blades to perish. Out of 6 blades only 1 was intact. I took it apart to try to see if I could fix it. At this point I tried powering them up with jumper wires. The one without a switch was dead, The one with a switch would turn on.

     Back online I found a manufacturer of replacement blades; La Favorite Industries,  https://www.lafavorite.com/fan-blades    I ordered a 6 pack. 

    While awaiting the blades I cleaned up the motor housings and the mounting bases, removing the red lead primer and sanding out the corrosion where I could. Lastly adding a clear coat of paint.

When they came in I discovered that they were not an exact fit, being larger and with a different lip on the inserted base.

    Next I traced and cut down one of the blades.

Then came the hard part, fitting the oversized base into the slot in the hub. No kidding it was hard!

    Once I knew I could do it I went ahead and cut out the other 5 blades and put them in.

   This is when I tried to power them up and get them to move air around. One of them has no switch so it was unknown if it worked. The other one didn't turn. I was disappointed and frustrated. I tried to find a spare parts supplier, only the blade guy comes up. I can't even find the manufacturer of the motors.

    There is a guy in Scotts Valley who does vehicle electrics. I was going to take them to him and see if I can find a switch or a plug. 

    Which brings me up to yesterday some 4 years later.......I've been getting rid of things in a Spring cleaning/yard sale almost frenzy. In the process I dug out the fans and went to reestablish where the fuck I was with them.

   Starting with "do they run?" I messed around trying to find/make a plug. Finally I came up with an old set of clamps from some sort of tester. I discovered that the female end on a crimp blade would slide on the pins for the motor and be fairly tight. I crimped a couple of those on and took the whole shebang to the 109.

    Zip, Nada, nothing. I tried the one without a switch by putting a screwdriver and jumping the contacts. Same result. 

     At this point I figured that the switchless one could be my guinea pig so I started to take it apart. First thing I noticed was that a coil was not connected at one end. I could only get the armature to spin a bit when it was out a little. I thought I had pulled it out of the brushes as it would not go back in. Then I HAD to unsolder the wires from the power and pull the guts out. Here I saw that the rear sits in a bearing and the brushes were in the front. The bearing had gotten cockeyed whilst I was playing around with it. Fixing the bearing and housing screws back in place I centered the bearing and plop the armature went back in. So I resoldered everything and put it back together as much as I could. There are 3 solid rivets that seem to hold the front bearing in place which I don't have.

     Wanting to see if the resoldering worked I took the motor back to the 109 and again jumped the switch. Lo and behold the motor turned! I put the blades back on to see if it was turning in the right direction. Nada.....wtf? took blades off, it turned! blades on, no worky!?

It would turn by hand with the blades on. Looking closely I could see the rubber blade base was rubbing on the motor housing. The motor not strong enough to overcome the friction.

     Out came the dremel tool and after some sanding and fitting I got the fit right and the fan moved air!

 Then I did the same to the switched motor. Both work with 2 speeds!

   I kinda figure I can mount them in the cab of the 109. First I want to take them to the guy in Scotts Valley and try to find a switch and plugs.

   

hand scraper fitted to reciprocating saw

 The other day I was telling my neighbor , John, about a paint can shaker for a recip saw. That night I got the idea that maybe I could make a hand scraper fit the same tool.

Today I got out my best scraper and figured I would have to cut and weld it to a cut saw blade. By using my recip saw I was able to just cut down the side of the handle to expose the haft of the scraper.

 Some of the handle got pretty gooey!

Once I went down both sides the metal was free of the handle.

It was here that I found the lower hole in the scraper blade and wondered if I could just make the same shape as the recip blade fitting. Why not try? Says I.

An old blade was set up for sizing and shape. I aligned the 2 blades and blocked out the material to remove with a felt pen. No not the auto pen!.......

Using a center punch I marked the hole for the recip lock, this hole is 1/8". The scraper blade really put the hurt to my punch!

I got the hole drilled ok and went about trying to figure out the best way to remove the excess material. I finally decided to just use my grinding wheel and began to freehand the removal. After a short stint i decided to clamp the old recip blade to the scraper and matching the 2, 1/8th holes and clamping with a vise grips it was all done in short order.

I wire wheeled the edges clean and it went first try into the saw!

It worked on a couple of hard surfaces, and let me tell you this is a stiff scraper blade and really kicks back if I hit an edge! But it did not bend! From start to finish this only took around 25 minutes. Next I'll get a softer scraper blade to make and try that. Either should make a large scraping job shorter!

DIY rivnut tool

 So in my YT feed t'other day I got a video touting a new rivnut tool. It was cool and worked with an electric drill. That made  the 4" long tool somewhere around a foot long and in some places where I've put rivnuts impossible to use.

   It made me think.

I've been using this little aluminum body tool for years. It uses a ramp to pull the rivnut up tight and does 2 sizes 1/4-20 and 10-32.

There is a tiny bar to help prevent the tool spinning. I found that instead of using a wrench on the bolt to pull the ramps together I could use my drill with a 7/16" drive on it.

Due to it's small size it does well getting into small places! Sometimes I need to stick a longer screwdriver in the bar hole to steady the tool.

I'm not getting rid of it, it is wearing out though and I am mostly done putting in rivnuts(I think).

    After watching the above mentioned video I wondered about a simple DIY tool and the possibilities. Thinking about it for a day or so I came up with this idea;

     I bought a 1/2- 13 connector, well the hardware store was out of them so I got a 1/2-13 x 3/8-16 connector which actually worked out good since it provides a smaller hole and the 1/4- 20 bolt won't wobble around as much. I also bought a 1/2-13 x1" bolt. I needed a through hole in the bolt for my 1/4" bolt to drop through, so 17/64".

    Beginning with my 3/16 drill bit upside down in my drill press, I set my vise under it and clamped the vise on the bit. This allows for the bit to be aligned with the chuck and the center point the same for both. Now I needed to lower the table to get the upside down 1/2" bolt in the chuck. So then I needed to reset the bit in the vise and clamp it all down again.

     Now the press works more like a milling machine, where the object turns and the bit is stationary.

I drilled the 3/16 and had to reset for the 17/64. Eventually I got through and my chuck and bolt were smoking HOT! I had to turn the bolt upside down to finish off the hole as my press range was too short.

A chamfer was put on both ends of the hole and it was time to try it out!

My adjustable wrench was clamped not too firmly in my vise and a hole drilled in some scrap metal. I slid a 1/4-20 bolt down the drilled hole and screwed the rivnut on and placed the metal over it. The 1/2" bolt takes a 3/4" wrench and with that I turned the bolt out of the immobilized connector until I felt it was a good tightness. Backed off a 1/4 turn and unscrewed the 1/4 bolt from the rivet. The rivnut was set!

An exploded view of the tool;

Now there was the question of a handle. I could probably used a wrench every time, but a handle seemed better. Digging piece off 1/2" rod out of the pile and using my crappy welder I stuck it on and then cleaned it all up. I put anti seize on the threads of the bolt to make it hopefully easier to use. I will use a washer between the 1/4 and 1/2 bolt in the future for less friction.

After cooling and setting overnight I'm painting it.