POPEYE wrote on 2025-03-30, 07:06:

Is it possible to buy spare parts for fans, I mean rubber rings, snap rings, ball bearings (if they are in the fan)?

And I disassembled only one fan with ball bearings (it was AMD Phenom II CPU fan), ball bearings is like glued inside fan body. Is it possible to get out ball bearings without destroying them and fan body in that situation?

Of course, if you have the patience....but does it worth it ? I think you might end up to spend more money for spare parts than a new fan...

_StIwY_ wrote on 2023-02-22, 12:19:

Hello, i would like too to restore some fans which are noisy from some old hardware. How can i pull off the fan from the motor without breaking anything ?

Depends on how the fan is constructed.
Does the fan give access to the c-washer that holds the shaft from coming out - i.e. is there a hole on the back of the fan under the sticker that allows the fan to be taken apart? If not, then it's a "sealed" type of fan, and those are extremely hard to take apart. I have taken apart both types. The regular fans are easy - less than a minute to take apart. But the sealed ones can only be taken apart if you make a cutout at the back of the fan and heat the shaft to a high enough temperature that will allow to soften/melt the c-washer that's on the front end of the fan hub - only then the fan can be pulled apart... and even then, it's risky, as often either the shaft can break from the rotor or become crooked, rendering the fan too wobbly afterwards.
I still do it because I hate throwing away hardware that I know I can safe... and also to "stick it" to the manufacturers that make these types of sealed fans - I don't like giving business to manufacturers that make crappy throw-away products that are intentionally built to not be service-friendly.

POPEYE wrote on 2025-03-30, 07:06:

Is it possible to buy spare parts for fans, I mean rubber rings, snap rings, ball bearings (if they are in the fan)?

Ball bearings - yes!
But beware that the auctions for cheap ball bearings on the bay, Amazon, and AE are mostly *used* bearings, sometimes as noise as the originals. Some years back, I bought a few specifically for this purpose - to restore some fans that had some truly failed bearings. Well, about half of the bearings ended up being almost as noisy as on some of the failed fans... so no exactly a worthwhile endeavor. But on the plus side, I got 10 bearings for $1, including the shipping, all the way from China. I mean, for that kind of money, I'm surprised they even sent anything at all. And that the other half of the bearings were in pretty good conditions was more than a bonus. I managed to restore 3 fans in total, which is good enough.

As for other parts - probably not possible to buy.
Then again, you don't really need to anyways. The rubber rings aren't always critical for the operation of the fan, nor the snap ring / c-washer in most cases. I had one fan where the snap ring / c-washer disintegrated. And the magnet on the fan wasn't exactly super strong, so it was easy to make the fan rotor jump out of the fan housing while the fan was in the PC if bumped a little harder. So I made my own c-washer by using a small piece of thin copper wire to go into the cut groove into the shaft where the c-washer usually is. This worked fine and fan is still running up to date (almost 15 years ago now.)
So yeah, not critical if you don't have those parts. I suppose this is where it would be useful to save old non-working fans too, as it will allow you to accumulate parts over time to fix up other (working) fans.

POPEYE wrote on 2025-03-30, 07:06:

And I disassembled only one fan with ball bearings (it was AMD Phenom II CPU fan), ball bearings is like glued inside fan body. Is it possible to get out ball bearings without destroying them and fan body in that situation?

For the most part, yes.
Most ball bearings are just heat-pressed / inserted into the fan plastic housing. So if you heat the housing (inside the stator) enough (70-90C is usually enough) the ball bearings should be able to be pulled out relatively easily.

_StIwY_ wrote on 2025-03-29, 18:34:

Silicone oil / lithium oil

8 / 10 i am able to recover the fans from being noisy. Of course, if the bearings are too much damaged, noise will stay there.

Lithium grease is not recommended for sleeve bearing fans. It is a good lubricant for the *inside* of ball bearings, though.
For sleeve bearing fans, light / machine oil is the way to go.

For me, some bike gear oil has worked always. That, and in extreme cases where even with it the fan wouldn't budge, a single puff of WD 40 un-seized it.

I thought I was the only crazy one restoring old fans instead of buying Noctuas! But I have to say, in particular those 80mm sleeve bearing fans from the late '80s / early '90s are usually very well built and easy to take apart. They are heavier than modern ones, and seem much more sturdy.

Only problem is I've lost several of those metal "C-clips" that keep the whole assembly in place since they tend to go flying across the room when you pry them up, never to be found again. Luckily I've found that those used in old fans are actually not called "C-clips" but "external retaining clips" and you can buy little boxes full of these, usually one of the smaller sizes fits well. Newer fans generally use a cheap plastic ring/clip that tends to break more easily when taking it apart.

Anyway, after cleaning the old gunk and re-lubricating they are usually quiet as a whisper and last as much as ball bearing ones if used in vertical position. For lubrication I use some drops of Singer sewing machine oil, seems to work great.

POPEYE wrote on 2025-03-30, 07:06:

Is it possible to buy spare parts for fans, I mean rubber rings, snap rings, ball bearings (if they are in the fan)?

And I disassembled only one fan with ball bearings (it was AMD Phenom II CPU fan), ball bearings is like glued inside fan body. Is it possible to get out ball bearings without destroying them and fan body in that situation?

I don't think there is a non destructive way to get those bearings out.

I'm surprised you guys take them apart. Is there much to gain over just lubricating them? I don't recall ever taking one apart and it helping (if it was super noisy) even though I hoped it would have.

Any thin oil works, automotive ATF is ideal if it's just a bushing. I like to use a toothpick with a droplet on it.

My solution to those tiny little gpu fans is replacing them with a larger passive heatsink and having good case air ciculalation. I hate the noise they inherently make, and some of the heatsinks are just pathetic with their surface area. If the fan stops, or runs slow - not good.

I think you might end up to spend more money for spare parts than a new fan...

Unfortunately, there are some fans that is very hard to replace. I can't find brand new fan for AMD Phenom II cooler. It should be 70x70mm 12V 0.7A with 4 contacts. There are such fans in the internet markets, but it seems that it is just refurbished old ones from AMD coolers.

And there is another problem, when I put grease on the back (where propeller is) it spreads on the propeller back inside and can even go out of the fan if it is a liquid oil.

bertrammatrix wrote on 2025-04-01, 02:20:

I don't think there is a non destructive way to get those bearings out.

There is, but it really varies between different fans.
With some, you have to heat the fan housing to get the bearing loose. With others, the ball bearings can be pulled relatively easily just with a bit of force.
The 1-ball 1-sleeve bearing hybrids tend to be harder, since the sleeve needs to be pulled first usually, and that does take some heating of the housing around it to get it loose. But still doable, though.

The only fans that cannot be taken apart non-destructively (or at least minimally destructive) are those newer sleeve bearing ones that don't have a plug on the back... which is just about every modern sleeve bearing fan anymore.
When I get to it someday, though, I'll post a How-To on that.

bertrammatrix wrote on 2025-04-01, 02:20:

I'm surprised you guys take them apart. Is there much to gain over just lubricating them? I don't recall ever taking one apart and it helping (if it was super noisy) even though I hoped it would have.

Yes, there is a lot to gain in terms of how long the repaired fan will last - particularly with sleeve bearing fans. If you just drop oil and don't clean the old gunk out, soon the oil will dry and the fan will get noisy again. Not only that, but for heavily-seized sleeve bearing fans, a drop of oil won't fix them long term at all. With these, the gunk has infused and smudged onto the sleeve bearing and so the sleeve needs to be cleaned very thoroughly. I actually do that by taking a small and very sharp flat head screw driver, pushing it in and out of the sleeve, making scratches on the surface that are parallel to the shaft orientation. This not only cleans off the gunk, but also creates micro-channels that later will hold oil much better within the sleeve. The result is a very long-lasting sleeve bearing fan. Essentially, this is very very similar to how "riffle" bearings / FDB's operate. As such, I have repaired fans from over a decade ago that are still going strong.

So yes, fully taking them apart can make a difference.
Also, for fans that have gotten extremely dusty over time, sometimes dust will accumulate inside the rotating hub (on the ring magnet surface) and make additional grinding noises. So that's another reason to take them apart.

And as mentioned in my previous post, ball bearing fans cannot be oiled, so taking these apart (and either refurbishing the bearings or replacing them entirely) is mandatory if you want to fix them.

bertrammatrix wrote on 2025-04-01, 02:20:

My solution to those tiny little gpu fans is replacing them with a larger passive heatsink and having good case air ciculalation. I hate the noise they inherently make, and some of the heatsinks are just pathetic with their surface area. If the fan stops, or runs slow - not good.

I'm with you here in regards to replacing those small/tiny heatsink-fan combos on old GPUs with bigger / passive ones.... though I don't really like to use completely passive heatsinks. Even if it's a huge passive heatsink, I still like to put a (larger) fan on top and run it at a very slow speed. The difference between fully passive and that with a slow-turning fan is negligent in terms of noise. But in terms of cooling performance, it makes a huge difference.

As for the small heatsinks with tiny fans...
Yeah, indeed their surface area is pathetic and not really adequate to cool anything more than 5W usually. The only way the manufacturer got away with using them on 10-15W GPUs is by putting tiny fans on them and running them full-bore / @ 12V... thus ending up with silly noise levels. So yeah, when the fans wear out on these or start turning slower, that's when the GPU underneath starts over-heating, and sometimes dying as a result. As such, I also reinforce the idea to replace these tiny coolers entirely.

The only useful application for those small coolers are on southbridge or nothbridge chips that either don't have a heatsink or have a really tiny one without a fan. In such case, putting these tiny GPU coolers on there and running the fan on either 5V or 7V provides both better cooling and doesn't add much noise... and the fan tends to last a lot longer at 5-7V instead of running full tilt at 12V.

PcBytes wrote on 2025-04-01, 01:11:

For me, some bike gear oil has worked always. That, and in extreme cases where even with it the fan wouldn't budge, a single puff of WD 40 un-seized it.

TheMobRules wrote on 2025-04-01, 01:34:

For lubrication I use some drops of Singer sewing machine oil, seems to work great.

I believe both bike gear oil and sewing machine oil fall into the same category of "light machine oils" - i.e. oils meant to be applied on exposed parts and thus won't evaporate with time. They also don't break down (easily) when exposed to various contaminants.
As for WD-40 - it can indeed be used to unseize seized parts (though there are penetrating oils that are much better for this task in case of really stubborn parts). It's not a good lubricant otherwise and certainly not meant to be used in places where you need long-term lubricants.

TheMobRules wrote on 2025-04-01, 01:34:

I thought I was the only crazy one restoring old fans instead of buying Noctuas!

🤣 🤣
Same here.
No Noctuas in any of my machines. Not that I have anything against these, but they are way too pricey for what they are... a bit like Apple / Macs, as another forum member here put it.

TheMobRules wrote on 2025-04-01, 01:34:

But I have to say, in particular those 80mm sleeve bearing fans from the late '80s / early '90s are usually very well built and easy to take apart. They are heavier than modern ones, and seem much more sturdy.

Even the really cheap sleeve bearing ones are quite OK, IMO.
A proper lube job will keep them running longer than they lasted out of the factory.

TheMobRules wrote on 2025-04-01, 01:34:

Only problem is I've lost several of those metal "C-clips" that keep the whole assembly in place since they tend to go flying across the room when you pry them up, never to be found again.

Or worse, they fly up and hit you in the eyes (ask me how I know.) No longer a problem, though - I figured how to pop those off without them flying. Usually I use a tiny flat head screw driver and hold that over the shaft, so when the retaining clip goes off, it just fires up onto the tiny screw driver and then back down.

TheMobRules wrote on 2025-04-01, 01:34:

Luckily I've found that those used in old fans are actually not called "C-clips" but "external retaining clips" and you can buy little boxes full of these, usually one of the smaller sizes fits well. Newer fans generally use a cheap plastic ring/clip that tends to break more easily when taking it apart.

Ah, thanks for clarifying that info.
I suppose anything can be bought as a spare part if you know exactly what it's called.

POPEYE wrote on 2025-04-01, 09:30:

And there is another problem, when I put grease on the back (where propeller is) it spreads on the propeller back inside and can even go out of the fan if it is a liquid oil.

Well, that's the improper method of doing this.

First off, are these sleeve bearing fans or ball bearing fans?
If sleeve bearing, machine oil should be used (as mentioned above), but don't go overboard if you don't want it to spill out. Moreover, it helps to clean the sleeve bearing and all other parts thoroughly before applying any lubricant so that it stays in the sleeve longer.
Now, if these are ball bearing fans, you cannot just add grease and hope that will go into the bearing. If you want to restore the BB, you have to take it out and take it apart (usually difficult and sometimes not possible to do without destroying the protective shield on the bearing.) Then clean with brake cleaner to get all of the old oils and gun out of it. Then re-pack with lithium grease or other grease suitable for ball bearings. Then put back together... and hope it lasts, as usually worn out BBs tend to push out the grease out of them quicker than normal. For very worn out BBs, leave the protective shield ring out and face the open side of the bearing facing the inside of the fan hub (there is usually a bit of space between the two bearings in the fan hub.) Now pack that with extra grease so that when the BB runs out, it will have plenty of extra to replenish it from.

The only ball bearing fan I've tried to fix was my ceiling fan. It had sealed ball bearings, but the seals failed and they pushed the grease out. For sleeve bearings (and other motors with bushings like household fans), I've been using 3-in-1 brand 20W "motor oil."