Furnace Noise - 1976 Safari

[Landyacht507]

Have a 1976 Safari, recently when the heater come on it makes a noise like the fan needs to be lubricated? It doesn't make the noise all the time and it continues to blow heat when it does. Is there a way to lube the fan or is the heater just going out slowly? I thought I would check here before taking it apart to research the noise. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[92landyacht]

This is a classic symptom of the blower motor bearings getting dry. Unfortunately the motors are not serviceable. The bearing assembly is sealed. Some have been able to stop the noise with some silicone spray lubricant sprayed around the shafts, but the noise will come back eventually. The best way to resolve this is to purchase a new motor and install it. Not too difficult and not too expensive. It's something to look into relatively soon. If it gets bad enough the furnace may not fire at all.

[Lumatic]

I agree with the above diagnosis.

If this is the original furnace I recommend replacing the whole furnace. New ones are a lot better and you won't have an old furnace with new motor. Unless you do the work yourself you will also have a difficult time finding a tech willing to work on a 37 year old furnace. And unless you know what you are doing you are taking on a major safety risk.

[dwightdi]

New motor is about $100 for parts. New Furnace is about $500. Little oil is three hours of labor to get it out, dismantle to the point you can run 3 in 1 oil down the shaft to get to the bearings, reassemble and get it back in. Recommend you run the motor some and oil twice before you reassemble. It should be good for a couple more years. If it is a Suburban, the new design construction is pretty much the same as the old one. Some early furnaces had a rubber tube in their construction and were recalled. They leaked CO into the trailer. If it has a rubber tube, get a new furnace.

[Aage]

All the above advice is good, but one thing to think about: furnaces do not improve with age. The innards tend to rust out with time, which can lead to them becoming a potential fire hazard.

As has been said on here many time, you wouldn't think twice about replacing a 37-year-old furnace in your house, would you..?

[Lumatic]

Originally Posted by Aage

As has been said on here many time, you wouldn't think twice about replacing a 37-year-old furnace in your house, would you..?

Your proverbial Old Chevy with a New Paint Job

[92landyacht]

Agreed with replacing the unit as a "best option". Assuming that the unit is original, that's what I would do.

[Skater]

Replace. I had a furnace in the B190 that squealed badly, had someone fix it, and they replaced the motor (supposedly), which worked fine for a while, then it started squealing again the next fall. So, I replaced the motor and both sets of fan blades, and it worked great ... for a few hours. At that point something else went wrong and it would fail to light half the time, which meant it would sit there and keep blowing cold air until I manually shut it off and restarted it (hoping it would light that time). Shop wasn't able to get it working reliably. I put at least $300 into repairs on the darn thing, never did get it working correctly, and the extra $200 would have been worth it to have a WORKING furnace on those cold nights, and not dealing with a space heater.

The furnace in the trailer works perfectly. It's great. After the B190 experience, it took me quite a while to get used to the reliability.