After all the help and problem solving yesterday with the generator faulting that was fixed. Hit the road late and things started warming up, literally!
I do not have functioning dash air so I simply planned to run the generator and the roof top units. Did that from Florida in May and it was great. Until the back ac stopped working. Kind of.... it was making a ton of noise and not really pushing out any air. When we landed for the night I got up top and opened it up and then ran the unit. The fan motor is literally jumping around causing the fans to hit the sides. I tried tightening up the mounts but that did not help.
Any ideas? I would simply replace the fan motor but not sure where to find one especially on the road as we are right now.
As always, your help and thoughts are appreciated!!
kind regards from York, Nebraska (currently) headed to Lake McConaughy.
Could be mud dauber inside squirrel cage causing vibration. If it now rubs on something, I've even seen the squirrel cage broken.
https://youtu.be/7I9mNK7btVE
Grainger which is everywhere would have the parts. They are not the cheapest, most time, but seem to have these type of parts.
Is just the fan blade jumping round since the bearing on the motor bad or bracket for motor broken. When you were up top was the unit cooling?
I agree with Jack above, check for something throwing the blade out of balance.
That was what I was hoping for but both fans move freely with the motor off. The motor starts jumping around, literally.
Could be unbalanced by mud dubbers nest.
Could be a broken motor mount (really depends on brand and how motor is secured to the unit).
I would have recorded it but it was dark, maybe I can do that later. The brackets/ bushings are present. I am thinking something must have broke inside the motor but it is still turning. Crazy! No obstructions and no wiggle in the shafts or fans.
The mount is 4 attachments with bushings. They were not really tight so I tightened hoping that would be enough and it was not. Pulling the fan motor looks like a pain in the rear! With shafts coming out on both sides of the motor I did not think it would be very easy to find.
Might be time to upgrade!
I agree with the rest. Look for a mud dobber on the fan blade. You would not feel it when turning the fan over by hand but when it got to speed it would jump all over. Might be kind of hard to get to it or see it.
Your air conditioner is 20 years old so no one would blame your for simply replacing it.
But, one side of that motor blows air over the refrigerant condenser, and the other side blows air over the refrigerant evaporator, sending cooler recirculated air inside your coach. The second fan is called a squirrel cage design and it is quite possible that it has something inside it, maybe a hamster or a gerbil, throwing it off balance. You might be able to access the squirrel cage fan from inside, and definetly from the outside albeit with more sheet metal screws to remove and replace and a Chinese style puzzle to solve. If you find the squirrel cage fan is broken, they are available on-line.
Last spring my rear AC wouldn't blow cold air and it sounded like the unit was trying to fly off the roof. Checked shafts, squirrel cage couldn't find anything. Finally got a small mirror and found the mud dauber nest. Cleaned it and all was good with the world again. Hope you can find something that simple, but it might take intensive looking. Those little buggers can really hide.
Larry
It sure sounds like the squirrel cage fan outside has mud daubers in it. Our rear ac on our 98 u295 did the exact same thing. Found the nest removed and no more jumping around.
I cleaned a bunch of mud Dauber nest out of the both a/c unit smoothed right up. Bet this coach has thirty pounds of nests and wasp nests. My concern are the ones in the intake for the engine.
Scott
The reason we knew about the mud daubers is because most of us have been there