That 70’s Fan

I picked up this fan at the OSU sale a couple of months ago. Unfortunately when turned on it did not oscillate but the fan blade did pump in and out about 1” as it rotated. So I put it on the fixit pile.

One Jeff Rusnak in this thread has a bit of information on the fan:

“These Westinghouse fans were from the very late 60's to right around 1970.Ray Hane has a brochure I looked at a few years back and it was dated 1970 and showed these fans along with other Westinghouse fans being made at the time.Westinghouse was still manufacturing the Riverias but they were made of metal and used the later plastic blades,and the Mobilares were also being produced.As for the desk fans they were made by Knapp Monarch/Jack Frost and the only Westinghouse parts were the blades.Very strange HUH ? The 16"looks much like the 10" & 12" but the guard is different and looks like the old standards,and the blades look like the standards,just a very thin plastic.The 16"s are 3 speeds and use the resistor.Yes it does get hot,and kinda glows on low.The very last of the Westinghouse fans.I have all 3 sizes 10" 12" & 16".The Livelyaires ran up until about the very late 60's,maybe about 1968 or 1969 before being dropped from production.”

And a Tom Dreesen in the thread points out the patent:

“Interesting, patent assigned to Knapp-Monarch in 1967”

This clears up a bit of a mystery about disassembly.

The oscillating shaft is completely frozen. That’s a left-hand thread on the amplitude adjuster knob (?). I like it better without the plastic knob, but I may find another plastic one for safety’s sake. You can see the 80% hole in the housing that the strain relief  goes through to hold the fan halves together. There’s a matching one on the other housing half. I pulled the strain relief out with pliers, carefully. Finally found the setscrew for the fan blade under all that hair and dust. This bushing just sort of fell out. It was a pain getting that spherical bearing off the shaft, completely varnished on so that the fan was rotating in the sheet metal cup rather than in the bearing itself. I had to file away the rivet heads holding the cover on the gearbox as they were integral to the bottom casting. The recalcitrant shaft. I had to carefully press it out and it was solid with dried lubricant (AKA varnish). Fitting it together and thinking. I drilled and tapped the bottom casting for #4-40 screws. Seems to be fine. Fitting the front bearing back in place. Darn. This is why I hate items not designed for repair. This works fine. All of the screws I used came from the estate sale I just posted about, because they were close at hand. And it works! I’ll clean off the labels and be ready for summer. Now to find some matching avocado appliances.