St. Croix Hastings room / convection fan noise

This is the noise that the room / convection fan Is making on my St. Croix Hastings pellet stove. I am looking for feedback from the forum on hearth.com as to a fix without replacing the whole unit. This started after I did a thorough cleaning. Everything (and I mean everything) except the "leaf blower trick" and removing this fan. I actually thought that it was the combustion fan making the noise at first since I disassembled it to clean it. The only thing I did to this fan was run my shop vac next to the grates to clear some dust off. After I realized the this fan was the issue, I removed it and totally cleaned it with brushes, compressed air and a shop vac. I don't think the noise is as loud as it was before I did it. This video shows the noise after the unit was removed and cleaned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mg2QUcYMwI&feature=youtu.be

Trust me. It is clean. I have now done all except, "leaf blower" trick. It is possible that the cartridge blades are rubbing. They could have moved from the suction of the shop vac. I will look into that. I am also going to pick up some high temp anti-seize tomorrow and lube where I can with that or penetrating oil. The versa grate is probably due for some anti seize anyway. I was thinking that the versa grate may be making the noise because I may have cleaned the stove too well and removed the anti-sieze. (I checked that though).

cold front said:

This should help check this out: https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/89961/

Click to expand...

Where are you from in Western NY? I am near Brockport.

I am going to take it apart again tomorrow, oil it and check clearances. It can't hurt. If it still makes noise, I'll live with it a while. Maybe it will quiet down as it gets buildup on it again.

Anyone have a good source for this fan if I need one?

The problem is fixed. I couldn't get past that this problem started when I cleaned the combustion fan. It was just bothering me. When I was looking closely at the compartment that holds the convection fan, I noticed that some unpainted metal was showing. If I pulled up on the bottom of the compartment, the unpainted metal would no longer show. So, obviously there must be a way to tighten this up. I remembered that in order to access the combustion fan, I removed the back panel that attaches on the bottom to the compartment that holds the convection fan and up top with two screws that screw in on a 45 degree angle near the hopper. These two screws were the problem. So, I pulled up on the compartment that holds the convection fan so that the panel sat better on theses two screws and then tightened the screws up. No more noise at all. The noise was just vibration. Make sure you do this when you reattach the back panel of this stove! This saved me $170 for a new unit and I would have had the same result if I didn't figure this out.

(I did oil the bearings and checked the clearance of the blades). Thanks for the ideas.

I don't think that oil is actually going to get into the sealed bearings. I do think that something like a WD40 would clean the area.