Evaporator Fan Shorting Out on Housing

[Rob_Feature]

After getting my Westinghouse WB78 up and running with a little help from JohnieG, I've been sippin' cold pops for a month or so now.  But today I went out to the garage and found the machine off and the circuit popped.

After hours of troubleshooting (and head smacking) I figured out that the cooling (evaporator) fan is shorting out on it's housing somehow.  If I remove the fan from the housing everything works fine (I even flipped it upside down in case that was making a difference).  If I screw it back into the housing, the circuit pops.

I figure there must be a short inside the fan.  Sound right?

If so, I have 2 questions:

First, am I able to somehow disassemble the fan and look for bare connections that are causing the short?  I couldn't figure out a way to take the fan apart to access the inside.

Second, if that's not possible and I need to replace it, how to I determine an exact bolt-in replacement?  I'd like to buy online but I'm not sure how these fans are sized/named, how I know the bolt holes will line up with my housing, etc.  Maybe I'll be REALLY lucky and JohnieG will sell me one from a under a parts-pile somewhere in that magic garage.

A couple pics of the fan and housing attached.

Help!  It's hot these days and I need to get some cold drinks flowing again.  Thanks!

[Rob_Feature]

Well, for the record I think I sorta fixed this.  I thought it looked like maybe the fan had been hitting the power cable ocassionally since it didn't look secured properly.  The cord is a little (not a lot) old and cracked, but I didn't see any holes big enough to cause a problem...I went ahead and wrapped it in some electrical tape anyway....

Poof.  Problem fixed.

Apparently, from what I can tell, there must have been an exposed wire in that cable that was really hard to see...time will tell if it holds up!

[ajf5577]

WTG!

[Rob_Feature]

Thanks for the encouragement!  I've worked on other stuff but I'm pretty new to soda machines (and VERY new to refrigeration...still learning how these things cool!).  I did end up taking apart the entire fan, just to see if there was anything I could potentially fix...there wasn't   But it's possible that taking that apart and back together may have 're-aligned' something, while also educating me on how fans are built!

[johnieG]

Glad you worked it out, keep in mind for the future that they sell " liquid" electrical tape, basically it's thick liquid rubber that you paint on the connection you wish to insulate.  It comes in handy for small cracks in wiring that are hard to get electrical tape wraped around.

[MoonDawg]

        Thank you Johnie!  I never knew this existed........I'm ordering some today