That is when I should have climbed up and started working on it. When it was cool. But, I did not need it. So I waited for the heat to come and really needed the cooler, and made the job more difficult. That roof is really hot when it is 90-100 Degs in bright sun. I would never make it as a roofer.
I climbed up to find out what was broke a little over a week ago. What I found was that the spokes holding the blower wheel had all broken where they were spot welded to a center hub. Here is a picture of a new blower wheel where I have indicated what I call a spoke and the center hub.
The center hub is where the axle slips through to hold the blower wheel.
I think if could have fixed the spot welds where the spokes connected to the hubs I could have fixed it. I have never done any welding so I did not consider that but for a second. Also, I believe it ran that way for a long time and so I thought the axle at that spot was badly worn. So I decided I needed to replace the axle and blower wheel. I should be able to just pull that stuff out right ? Ha!
So, I went to Home Depot to find the parts I needed. While there we looked at new evaporative coolers. I thought about getting a smaller one, which I thought I might be able to get up on the roof by myself. Cost was about $450 plus delivery. If we had them do the installation they contract with someone in Phoenix who would charge $50 just to come up and measure things and decide what was needed.
Also, we found that Home Depot did not carry blower wheels. ( I was calling these squirrel cages, and later learned the proper term to be blower wheels ) They did carry the axles (should be called the blower wheel shaft) and the bearings for the axle.
So I went home and decided I needed to look at it all again. I was sure I could find a supply for the blower wheel on the internet. I went up again and found an old tag inside giving the manufacturer: McGee-Edison. I looked for them on the internet. Found that many years ago McGee purchased Edison Electronics. That's right, Thomas Edison's, electronics. I did not dig into details whether it was all of Thomas Edison's electronics assets or just a part of it, etc. But it was related to Thomas Edison. Then I found that McGee-Edison was bought by another company and I found they still made evaporative cooler systems but I could not find an outlet. So, I considered them to be out of biz.
So, I started to find other companies that offered piece parts for evaporative coolers down in Phoenix. I went back up and tried to make some measurements. I found the blower wheel to be 19" across and 18" in diameter. That corresponds to a 6500 CFM blower. ( The new cooler I was looking at, at Home Depot was 4500 CFM. I am glad again I did not proceed to get a smaller one.)
Now I knew I could get the parts I needed. So, my next thought was to go up and do a bunch of measurements and see how to take things apart. What I found is that you cannot take the blower wheel out without taking the inside housing out which holds the blower wheel.
The blower wheel is too large to come out anywhere but the hole that it blows the air into the house. So, I saw that I needed to take out the complete blower housing assembly. To do this there are two side brackets which are bolted to another bracket on the main outside housing. The part of the blower housing assembly which connects to the ducting going into the house is just held up by laying on bend of the sheet metal along the opening into the ducting hole to the house. So if I can take off the two bolts on the back I should be able to lift out the housing. This is after already taking off the drive belt and the motor which is mounted on the top of the blower assembly. Here is another diagram:
Of course I found that the bolts on back were too corroded to unscrew. I used a small saw and hand cut them. Then I pulled out the blower housing assembly. Then I needed a way to lower it to the ground. It was too hot to try and work on it up on top. I carried it over to the ladder, connected a couple straps to it and lowered it down the ladder with Sheryl holding it underneath.
So that was a major step in progress. At this point I thought I could replace the whole housing assembly with a new one. I called the supplier I found in Phoenix and found he did not have a housing assembly he felt would be an exact fit, but he thought he had some that could be close enough to make fit. This did not sound good. So I took another look and decided all I really needed was to get the blower wheel out.
I now found that everything was so corroded that I could not take the pulley wheel off the end of the axle. I could not budge the blower wheel on the axle. I could only get a couple of the bolts holding the bearing to come off. So, I slept on it and decided the next morning I was just going to have to cut everything I could to pull it all out.
I got up the next morning, used my multimaster and sawall and cut all the spokes on the blower wheel so it had no connection to the axle. Then I cut the bolts that held the bearings. At this point I could pull the axle out with the bearings still on it from the size with the pulley wheel.
Here is a photo of it lying on the ground:
Then after taking off a little plate which sizes up the blower hole, I was able to lift out the blower wheel. Okay, we have it all apart, and just need parts to put it back together. The next day was Saturday, and we drove to Phoenix with our blower wheel and axle assemble to our parts supplier. He was open and he had all these parts in the right sizes. Hooray! It was over 100 in Phoenix and getting hotter. We headed back as soon as we could and found it was 102 back home.
I started to work on it the next morning. Here is a photo of the old axle and pulley wheel and the new one we purchased:
We also went back to Home Depot and purchased more screws, bolts, washers, lock washers, rubber washers, for replacements on all the ones I had to cut.
I got up and started by trying to scrape and clean some of the loose corrosion from the inside of the housing assembly.
This photo also shows the side brackets on the housing assembly which I do not believe I would have been able to replace if I had tried to buy a new housing assembly. Their sizing is custom to the size of the overall cooling assembly.
Thinking about getting everything back up, I decided that the the blower wheel, axle, and pulley wheel all add some significant weight to the housing assembly. So, I would reassemble them back in on the roof. I did attach the new bearings to the side brackets.
What we found now was that we were missing a small collar that goes on the axle between the pulley wheel and the bearing. It is intended to not let the axle slide back and forth much. So, we went to ACE to get that.
When we got back, Sheryl came up the idea to strap the housing assembly to my back for me to carry back up the ladder. This was a good idea and it made it easy to carry back up.
I carried it back to the main housing. Then we did clean up and scraping of the inside of the main housing. We purchased some sealer spray that we used on corrosion and rust areas and I think it looked better inside the main housing than it did for many years.
So, together we fit the blower housing assembly back in. Then we found that the screws we purchased for the back of the brackets were a little too short in length. Back to ACE again for longer screws. We got them and they worked well. Then I found that putting the axle back through the bearings was a two person job, because if the axle got a little too much angle on it, it looked like it was going to pop out the bearings from their mounts. So I needed Sheryl's help again to help hold the axle straight while I lifted the blower wheel inside for the axle to slide through. We finally got it back in there.
Then we needed to remount the motor. I found the motor mount got bent, so I had to straighten it. Got the motor mounted. Then we needed to line up the pulley wheel with belt wheel so the belt was going on straight. Then tighten the belt with an adjustment screw on the motor mount.
We tested the motor and it worked well.
Next I reconnected the water line, and put the float valve back on the end. Then I hooked up the water pump and fixed some of the water distribution lines. We then tested the water pump, and guess what ? It DID NOT RUN !
Sheryl went back to ACE. Brought home a new one. I hooked it up and everything seemed to be working well. HOORAY! HOORAY!
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Probably the biggest problem of the whole thing was I waited for it to get hot to fix. I did not describe here that I had to come down several times to cool off before I could go back up. The heat up there is just too much for a guy that spends most of my time in front of a PC can stand much of.
Today, our house is comfortable with a quiet working evaporative cooler.
