B602 aer motor head questions

[Georgie]

Hey guys relatively new here! Ok long story short, I’ve acquired a B602 aermoter 10’ windmill and 47’ tower. Was going to plan and totally disassemble and rebuild gears, Babbitt bearings etc. BUT let me be clear, this is clearly for looks and aesthetics on our ranch. NOT to pump. All babbits were worn through including gear arms/ etc. well trying to take main fan shaft off after removing gear pins and can’t seem to get shaft out. BUT pulling drain plug/access plug for shaft. I realized someone tapped and threaded the plug for grease zerk. And grease all in shaft compartment. Along with someone added a half ass “gasket” with pipe clamp and rubber. Started realizing after not being able to get shaft out, trying to figure out getting parts and figuring out how to pour habit bearings. Realized I don’t REALLY need to do that. I know it would be amazing to have it all OG and working but any reason why I couldn’t just keep grease in shaft compartment and just run the windmill as is? Thoughts/concerns/anyone else experience this? Things id need to do “right” to just run the grease? Any advice,/thoughts greatly appreciated! Thanks
Chad

[windybob]

You can do anything you wish. Put her up, and let her fly. eventually you will need to do something with it, but until then, enjoy it. It's yours anyway.

[Windcatcher530 Dan]

You should be fine with just the grease.I have a six foot Aermoter fitted with just grease zerks because i raise and lower it on a trailer to bring it to shows.

[mtblah]

maybe thin the grease a little with chainsaw bar oil , its really sticky and may help grease get into some additional bearing places . maybe it will live a little longer

[Georgie]

Great thanks for the thoughts!! Yea will get er back together and just put it up for awhile!!

[hedgerow]

Georgie Go visit you local John Deere dealership and pickup a case of corn head picker grease and fill the head with it. Not the right way to repair it but it will work and its a thinner grease. I know of many Aermotor wind mills that have been pumping water for many a year using it as the land lord didn't want to spend money to fix the mill right.

[LoTec]

So this is set up to pump grease into the hub through a zerk inserted into the hub plug? You can fill the hub with grease, but I don't see how very much of it at all will get where it's actually needed: to the inside of the snout where the bearing is. Of course, if the bearing is totally shot, maybe the hub is riding on the top of the snout anyway.

If this mill belonged to one of my customers, and was up and running, and was just for looks, and they didn't want to pay for a complete rebuild, I'd say fine, whatever, grease 'er up and drive it til it drops. If it was mine, and I had it on the ground, I'd take it apart and fix it right (rebabbitt, and restore the original elegantly engineered oil circulation system) before putting it back up, instead of limping along with the current ugly mickey mouse cobble job. If the hub bearing is completely shot, the shaft may be badly worn, and who knows, it could break and then the wheel would be flopping around creating havoc with your looks and aesthetics, not to mention maybe sending stray blades flying.

[windybob]

If a person put a zerk in the hole where the scraper goes, you could possibly get some grease into the shaft area, but being as it's so close to the face of the snout, and with bearing wear, I don't think much would actually get into the shaft area before coming out the snout. Filling the entire hub with grease would be like dumping a whole bunch of oil into your gas tank, and hoping it gets to the crank case.

[LoTec]

And why couldn't you get the shaft out? Did you remove the oil collector?