I am dealing with an EMD traction motor blower fan blade that has a bad barring. The belts are off. We are trying to use wheel pullers but they aren't working. Does anyone have any tips or advice on how to get the fan off? Thanks!

Lot of heat would work. A rose bud torch is idea for that job. It has been decades since I have seen a belt drivention Traction Motor Blower, but we still have belts fro them in our stores department we laugh at that weekly. CPR hasn't had an operating belt driven fan or blower in eastern Canada in over twenty years. 6712 a SW8 still operates in Calgary.

I texted our diesel mechanic Jim, and he has the following advice:

"They are hard to get off will need to heat and let cool many times to get broken loose."

Heat it let it cool heat it again let it cool repeat as needed until it breaks free. Also when cooling if you have access to it try hitting the shaft not the blades with a jet of cool water to force a temp difference in how fast it cooled that might break it free faster. I know that worked wonders on some of the old roller bearings I had to change on tractor hubs in the past to get them off the shafts they were stuck on.

We just recently had this problem with electric driven traction motor blowers. We ended up having to make a more robust puller than the off the shelf one we had, strong enough to be driven with an impact wrench. We heated the fan hub and tapped it with a hammer, while driving on the puller with an impact. Good luck.

Jason Lamb
Everett Railroad

Try tightening the puller as much as you can, then heat it up and let it cool down with tension on the puller. Typically you will find the puller will have less torque on it after it cools down which means the part moved however slightly. Tighten it back up again and repeat. Eventually it will creep it's way off the shaft.