Today I went to my local Kirby dealer to pick up a few parts for my Classic Kirby. While I was there in the repair area I was looking around the shop. I noticed a Kevlar fan sitting on top of a file cabinet that looked as tho the blades were worn down by about half thier original size.(disk to leading edge of the blade.) On further examination I discovered that the blades were bent down in a perfect "L" shape. None of the blades were broken or missing. I asked "Tom" the dealer what the heck happened to that fan to cause the blades to bend over like that. Tom said that the factory wired the motor wrong and the fan was spinning in the opposit direction that it should have been and something got stuck in the fan case causing them to bend over.
I can only imagine that the motor must have been wired wrong for the second speed. You could see that the fan had enough use to make it dirty. You would never have kept a belt on the machine and it would have been caught by the demonstraitor if that was happening at all times. There must have been enough heat generated by what ever was caught in the fan case to cause the blades to warp and not break.
Tom said "who ever wired that motor at the factory must have been drunk that day"
If this isn't a testament to the durablilty of the kevlar fans I can't imagine what would be. After I left I wished I had asked if I could take a few pictures to post here for all of you to see. I may call him and ask to just that.
Post# 147312 , Reply# 1   8/15/2011 at 23:57 (4,636 days old) by super-sweeper(KSSRC Refurbishment Center)