welp, thar she blows...

[Mikey P]

OG 6008 blower is done.


Lower seal popped out when greasing the bitch today.


and now the shaft has some wiggle in it.


My N#$@** rigged bearing fix held but I think it's time to put in the virgin blower.



Lunchpail to the rescue.



what is it with these POS Vortexes?

Fensterfooker is on his 3rd blower in 6000 hours?

Every V owner I know has never gotten more than 6000 out of one.


Belts too tight?
too many inches of lift over heating the bearings?

 

[Connor]

Frosty the snowmans wife is a snowblower.

 

[John Watson]

Too much grease aint good neither, Lower seal popped out when greasing the bitch today.
I knew a few oilers on the Trans Alaska Pipeline that got canned and lost the easy money by squeezing the grease guns trigger too much. Most don'tknow to just add a pump or two some thinks they gots to change or flush all the grease in the bearing....

 

[Desk Jockey]

6000 hours? :shock: Man that's a lot for any blower.

 

[Mikey P]

I call it the 401k curse.

 

[Jimbo]

I'm almost certain that Yorky has a 'Vortex Voodoo Truck' with your company name on the side...I thought the pin was in the tranny though...he must have moved it!

Just kidding!...Make sure you have help moving that 6008 into place...an engine hoist would be nice...you could place it right from the side door.

http://www.harborfreight.com/2-ton-fold ... 35915.html

 

[Dolly Llama]

6000 hours? :shock: Man that's a lot for any blower.

You think??
I don't
the blower is the most durable component on a TM

My retired TM had 12,000 hours on the original Roots 45 .
Never did a thing to it 'cept change the oil (I use 85wt gear oil) and grease the bearing once in awhile

The only blower troubles I've had in 21 years was when some dumbass forgot to tighten the oil drain plug tight .

I won't say who the "dumbass" was


..L.T.A.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Twelve thousand? :shock:

 

[Mikey P]

My thoughts on the short life of V blowers.

Talking to AT today, they said the manufacturer thinks 6000 hours is about all to be expected considering the design and use.

On the 6008 series Vs they were designed ( almost looks intentionally :shock: ) to drip grease from the shaft side down on to the lower PTO shaft pulley. Most V newbs thinks it's loose belts causing them to slip as the grease is so little you can't see it,, so the belt get over tightened. If you find the boards and read about the issue or have a good eye than you put hoses on the weep holes and channel to grease elsewhere and slacken the belts. Overly tight belts lead to short bearing life

Most V owners run there blower over 15 inches of lift so the unit runs hotter....Not good for the blower..

I'd like to hear some thoughts on the goofy angle these blowers are installed at, could be an issue...Where is Ron Beatty?

 

[FB7777]

You need to post your Vortex and UD issues to a wider audience

There must be at least 80 guys that would love to watch a 7 foot Vegan eating crow

 

[Mikey P]

are you suggesting I rent out the Woodstock field Fred cause the online carpet cleaning world who had to listen to me suck off Yappers is already here.

 

[FB7777]

Woodstock should be able to handle the crowd

99% of the cleaning community has been running cargo or box vans and 3 or 4 series blowers since the 70s

Along comes Mikey P with his " last truck mount system you'll ever need" assault on very other TM

It's fricken hilarious

 

[Mikey P]

yeah but it still works and sucking out over 300k worth of filth a year since 2004.

 

[Jim Martin]

You need to post your Vortex and UD issues to a wider audience

There must be at least 80 guys that would love to watch a 7 foot Vegan eating crow

god that was funny.......




anyway......

On the 6008 series Vs they were designed ( almost looks intentionally ) to drip grease from the shaft side down on to the lower PTO shaft pulley. Most V newbs thinks it's loose belts causing them to slip as the grease is so little you can't see it,, so the belt get over tightened. If you find the boards and read about the issue or have a good eye than you put hoses on the weep holes and channel to grease elsewhere and slacken the belts. Overly tight belts lead to short bearing life

Most V owners run there blower over 15 inches of lift so the unit runs hotter....Not good for the blower..

I'd like to hear some thoughts on the goofy angle these blowers are installed at, could be an issue...Where is Ron Beatty?

you are correct..but I don't think it was intentional...just a bad design that no one thought about...the lines on the weep holes should of been standard issue....

This has been a big problem with a lot of Vortex owners...little grease..a little slip...and they are play dueling banjos on there drive belts...and burning bearing...

I never really seen any issues with the blower at a slight tilt...most blowers don't really care how you set them as long as they are true to what they are running...and can still splash the oil on the wet side....the only draw back was it limited the angle of drive ways that you could set it on because it was already pitched....

yours and Beattys problems are 2 different issues...

 

[Mikey P]

my new blower was built with the pulley shaft on the right side so it will have to be flipped upside down.

Now I'll be greasing the bearings from the out side in, if that makes sense...


should help keep the non drive side bearing in place, if greasing was what caused the last one to start moving off the shaft.



In Vortex/Aerotech's defense guys like Rampage and Hicks have had almost zero issues with theirs..

 

[Jim Martin]

my new blower was built with the pulley shaft on the right side so it will have to be flipped upside down.

Now I'll be greasing the bearings from the out side in, if that makes sense...


should help keep the non drive side bearing in place, if greasing was what caused the last one to start moving off the shaft.



In Vortex/Aerotech's defense guys like Rampage and Hicks have had almost zero issues with theirs..

If I remember correct..Dave has had a few big issues with his and off the top of my head I can't remember what...and I don't think that Hicks runs his that hard...

you run yours hard...and for as hard as you push it....you really should be happy she has held up as good as it has....
your transmission problem was inevitable...with the hills you have to climb and having to get into it to get it up over the top...it was just a matter of time...the rest of the things that have gone wrong were a handful of BS things....push any other unit as hard as you have push this one and see how well it holds up...

on the other side of the coin...I am still holding my breath on the 10 more year thing.......

 

[Jim Martin]

BTW...If you have to flip the blower....will the rotation still be the same way.....?????

 

[Mikey P]

yep

 

[Jimbo]

Make sure you check the vent position on the oil bath side since you are turning the blower over...you don't want the oil to drain out.

 

[Mikey P]

I suppose I should pop off the bearing side and have it rebuilt..

I had some nifty grease cups made to catch the spooge

 

[Desk Jockey]

Damn she treated you so good for all these years and you throw her in the corner like a used up bitch.


:mrgreen:

 

[Mikey P]

and Foster had that corner set up so nice and cozy too..

 

[Bob Foster]

I'm done.

 

[Mikey P]

Damn Kenadians got no sense of humor...

 

[Jimbo]

Clever grease catchers!

 

[Nate The Great]

Damn Kenadians got no sense of humor...

Brah!

 

[Erik]

Clever grease catchers!

Hell, i would patent them. Will your guy make me a set, how much? What a great idea!

 

[Jim Bethel]

I agree with Larry here, they are by far the most reliable thing on most truck mounts.

6000 is nothing for a blower. I know heaps of guys running high inches of Hg and getting 15,000 + hours. Heck, I have a client over here running a 47 roots at 15" and he has 22,000+ working hours on his blower and it is still running fine.

I don't know what it is like over your side of the world, but over here, (pre the days of encamping and tile and grout cleaning), a busy carpet cleaner would average 1000 hours per year on his machine. Going on the V's reliability, that means every 6 years or so you would be up for a new blower, which would be crazy expensive.

Remember that our industry aren't the only ones that us PD blowers. The mining industry use them as well and get very long life spans out of their positive displacement blowers.

 

[pajarodune008]

Thanks for sharing the post with us.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I agree pre encap days we would average 800-1000 hours a year.