arnash said:
Today I opened up the left side of my Whitfield and put a few drops of oil in the two oil holes on both blowers. Now the room blower no longer rumbles every few seconds as it has for the 2 months that I've used it. If you buy the Whitfield you're considering, that might be one of the first things you'll want to do because most owners who aren't do-it-yourself-ers" won't bother doing it every year as recommended since it isn't a really easy process and you need the right kind of lubricant. I just happened to have (from some yard sale) a plastic bottle of high-temp turbine oil with a long pull-out plastic dispensing tube.
That's interesting, because I'm real big on maintenance and lubrication, but the service manual for my Whitfield Profile 20 says "Do not lubricate blowers, they are permanently lubricated."
Now, I'm not the type to just think, "OK! The manual says don't oil them, so I won't!" But I'm hesitant to go blasting the motors full of liquid wrench.
I'd oil the motors if I knew:
I was using the right type of oil.
The oil wouldn't "clean off" some type of special factory lubricant, or attract dust in a bad way.
Do these motors use roller bearings, or the common sintered-metal oilite bushings? I've found that once the oil-impregnated bushings "dry out", it
seems near impossible to keep them lubed, I've only had some luck with a heavy oil, like 75-weight,
:/