Seized blower

Jim Morrison · Aug 12, 2014

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Have a question about a seized blower in a Cleanco Compact 47. I’ve had the truck since ’07 and could write an essay on how to seize a blower in clear cause, operator related goofs. In October of 2012 had an epic seizure, got a terry towel so far imbedded in the impellers that the blower had to be replaced. However the most recent two events have me scratching my head.

When the blower was replaced in 2012 a 3/8” thick gasket that seals the blower to the waste tank adaptor hood wasn’t in stock so the tech filled the void with silicone. Here is a picture of the “hood”

View attachment 5272

In February of this year the first of the two most recent seizures happened when the Cleanco was fired up on the second job of the day. The blower started knocking on start up and then seized. When I removed the blower hood this is what I found –

View attachment 5274

The first picture shows where debris has been getting sucked into the blower due to a leak in the blower hood seal.

The dirt getting sucked across the silicone is visible here.

View attachment 5273

When I saw these signs I figured a piece of silicone came loose and caused the seizure. The next day I took the truck to Fibreclean in Edmonton and the tech had to pull the blower to unseize it but said nothing was found on the impellers to explain the seizure. He got things sealed up again with silicone and off I went, happy to have the van working.

A couple weeks ago, after starting up the unit on the first job of the day we presprayed a bedroom then lost vacuum after starting to clean the closet. Blower seized again, this time it sheared the rivets off the electric clutch (which had just been replaced a week earlier...grrr!) and the van would not run without the shrieking of the toasted clutch. After talking to the tech at Fibreclean we decided to get it towed and a local mechanic was able to take the clutch apart to the point where I could drive it to Edmonton for repairs. I removed the hood before the van went for repairs and found this, it appears a dark grey silicone was used to re-seal / patch over the existing silicone at the time of the last seizure.

View attachment 5275

View attachment 5276

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Fibreclean again got it unseized and put in a new electric clutch. This time a gasket was used to seal the blower to the hood. The tech attributed this seizure to operating the truck without a waste tank shut-off which would cause foam / debris floating on top of the waste water to get sucked through the blower filters.

Early in the Cleanco’s life the waste tank shutoff float took a dump and I never replaced it. We normally empty the waste tank before refilling with fresh water so this has not been a major issue, ran waste water thru the blower a couple of times the most recent was a year ago.

Anyhow if you are still awake after reading that and would care to comment I’d appreciate it.

dealtimeman · Aug 12, 2014

Would definatly get that waste tank shut off operating and make sure there is not any more potential debris in the vac system that could detach and lock the blower up.

I will say, that two seizures and you do t have to buy a blower, you sir are very fortunate and blessed with almost no downtime from what it sounds like.

dgardner · Aug 12, 2014

I have never actually run silicone sealant through a blower, but I wonder whether it would be able to sieze it. Personally I don't think so.

You might want to check your vacuum relief. It's a long shot, but if you're running too high a vacuum, the outlet temperatures can soar. If the rotors get too hot they can expand to the point they make contact, siezing the blower. Once they cool down no more contact, leaving you scratching your head as to what caused the problem.....

dealtimeman · Aug 12, 2014

Only way that silicon won't seize the blower is if it a open tolerance blower. A normal or spec blower would be stopped quick. We are talking thousands here.

renegade_cowboy · Aug 12, 2014

How big is your fresh water tank and how big is your dump tank? If you have a 100 gallon tank, the tank should be shut off at 80 gallons. Either you are getting to much moisture/debris through your blower because your tank level is to high or you have the worse luck with blowers. You already have evidence that dirt/debris was entering the blower, it could have caked up on the inner walls of the blower.

Johnny · Aug 13, 2014

Why the hood? Seems conventional plumbing would be cleaner.

dealtimeman · Aug 13, 2014

After re looking at the pics i would definitely agree with johnny

Get a 3 inch 90 and screw it into the blower and clamp existing boot or just get a 3 inch nipple and get a new hose from your supplies and clamp both sides.

Second option above would achieve the least resistance imo, and best option.

Steve Lawrence · Aug 13, 2014

I would avoid silicone and go with gaskets.

Jim Morrison · Aug 14, 2014

How big is your fresh water tank and how big is your dump tank? If you have a 100 gallon tank, the tank should be shut off at 80 gallons.

Fresh water tank is 120 gal waste tank is 100 gal. They did replace the shutoff this time so I should try to run the fresh water tank low and see if the waste tank reaches a level where the unit shuts down / water level gets close to the filters.
I just don't get how it ran this way 4 years problem free.

A normal or spec blower would be stopped quick. We are talking thousands here.

agree

Get a 3 inch 90 and screw it into the blower and clamp existing boot or just get a 3 inch nipple and get a new hose from your supplies and clamp both sides.

The picture of the hood doesn't show the vertical distances very well as it covers the blower inlet, there isn't enough vertical space to screw a piece of pipe in and then connect hose to the waste tank.
When I look at pictures 2 & 5 it looks like a piece of silicone is missing that would align with the mating area in the last picture where the silicone looks dirty from air running across it at the 2 o'clock position. (or am I just over thinking the whole silicone theory?)

idreadnought · Aug 14, 2014

to begin with I would get rid of the silicone. making a 3/8 gasket would not be a huge ordeal.

Second, blowers can be very sensitive to film, if you cleaned a very sudsy carpet the suds could of gummed up the blower if the inlet filter sucked them in.

The silicone has a very high melting temperature and the blower would be strong enough to chew it up imo.

rwcarpet · Aug 15, 2014

dgardner said:
I have never actually run silicone sealant through a blower, but I wonder whether it would be able to sieze it. Personally I don't think so.

You might want to check your vacuum relief. It's a long shot, but if you're running too high a vacuum, the outlet temperatures can soar. If the rotors get too hot they can expand to the point they make contact, siezing the blower. Once they cool down no more contact, leaving you scratching your head as to what caused the problem.....

Question for Dan........what would be a "too high" temp? Would you measure temp at the bottom nipple, since the blower exhaust is mixed with engine exhaust, with a digital laser temp reader? Or check the temp of the blower case with the lazer reader?

dgardner · Aug 15, 2014

rwcarpet said:
Question for Dan........what would be a "too high" temp? Would you measure temp at the bottom nipple, since the blower exhaust is mixed with engine exhaust, with a digital laser temp reader? Or check the temp of the blower case with the lazer reader?

I don't have a definitive answer for you on that one, sorry. It has a lot to do with how fast the temperature rises, as the rotors expand faster than the housing.

Here's a pretty good treatment on blower issues if you can't sleep tonight.....

http://www.everestblowers.com/brochure/airfstm.pdf

Larry Cobb · Aug 17, 2014

Don't talk about slide-in engineering !

Looks like a tight bend for airflow !

I would re-engineer that housing with hi-temp elbow . . .

but I can't see the actual diameter of the tank inlet . . .

Too many variables, on top of an electric clutch .

Larry

Seized blower

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