Just a note from my recent experience with the Delta 15″ planer…… One day when I shut the machine off, I noticed the cooling fan freewheeling. The fan had come lose on the shaft & spun enough to ream out the hole to where it couldn’t be retightened. I managed to use some electrical tape as a bushing to finish what had to be done. Then I called Delta, expecting to purchase an inexpensive part. Turns out the fan is not sold as a separate part. They wanted to sell me a $300 replacement motor. The consultant did, however, suggest, I contact a “local” electric motor rebuilder to see if they could match up the part with something they had. No such services locally, so I had to widen the search. Finally found a repair shop that said I could mail them the fan & they would try to either fix it with a bushing or get a replacement. In the end, no remedy was available. The shaft size on the Chinese made motor that Delta currently uses does not correspond to any bushings or fans that are readily available. The only option is to continue to use some makeshift shimming material & check it frequently.

If any of you have purchased a 15″ Delta planer in the last 5 years or so, it might be worthwhile to tighten the clamp on the cooling fan to make sure this doesn’t happen to you. I don’t know what other machines might be suffering from the same problem, but think I will do some preventive maintenance in the shop.

If any of the rest of you have had a similar problem, I’d be interested in hearing from you.

Ed