Howard Towlson wrote asking about Century motors.   (A Woods motor is
also common on these blowers, but I believe that they are 3-phase).
Whenever I need to deal with these motors I simply take them to a
qualified electric motor repair shop; it really is the easiest way.
Consult your yellow pages and make a few calls.

It can be a pain to disassemble the motor to make these kinds of
repairs and adjustments -- you need to know what you're doing or you
could mess up the motor and then you might have to get it rewound,
and that can be expensive.  So you are really better just taking it
to a shop in the first place.

I have taken one Century motor apart, and I had a friend helping me
that had completely rebuilt several of them, and even then it was a
pain.  One of the things is that is a pain is the spring which loads
the blades of the centrifugal switch.  It is a large compression coil
spring (the force pushes against it) which is installed on the shaft
and goes back under the armature a little way.  One end rests on the
armature and the other end pushes on the back of a collar on which the
mechanism that switches the motor from repulsion to induction mode at
the proper RPM.

Now, having stated all this, the problem you are having could be that
the blower is just having trouble getting up to speed, and the causes
for this are easy to check.  First, is there too much grease (or no
grease) in the grease cup?  If there is, there will be too much drag
on the bearing for the shaft to turn freely.

Try turning the shaft by hand, if you can turn it, and keep it going
easily.  It doesn't have to be fast, just turning.  Then everything
should be fine with the "drive" and you need to consult a motor tech.

If you can't get it to spin very long by hand you have a drag problem
and need to find the source of the drag.  It can be the grease cup,
as I said above, or you could have bad bearings, or perhaps a fan has
worked lose and is rubbing on the housing, or it could be in the motor.

Another thing that you can try to help you diagnose the problem is
a leak test.  Disconnect the blower from the organ, and either use
a piece of the heaviest rubber cloth you can get your hands on (the
heavy fleece backed is the best for this) and a collar, and close off
the stack by completely covering it with the rubber cloth and holding
it in place with collar.  (Don't use duct tape as it can blow off that
way, and that's bad.)  _Or,_ get an old piece of carpet, about 6 feet
by 6 feet, and have someone hold it over the "snoot" (intake).

Now turn on the blower and see if you're still having trouble.  If you
are, you must have a major air leak someplace (or way to many little
leaks).  A pipe organ blower really needs to supply a "closed" system,
and it will burn itself out trying to supply the world with whatever
it's static rating is.

There is a lot more to it than I am stating here but these are the
"basics".  I do remember seeing a page with the Spencer manual on it
some place, but I am not remembering the URL at the moment, but try
having a look at www.theatreorgans.com or doing a search on Spencer
Orgoblo.  I do have the files on my computer and would be willing
to forward them to Jody and Robbie for posting in the MMD Archives.
(The whole set of GIF images is 2.63M. )

I hope this helps you a little.

Ed Copeland <edcplnd@thebestisp.com.geentroep>
http://www.ourmusicalhouse.com/