My husband an I took the wind turbine down yesterday to see if it was a loose nut on the flange that was causing the loud airplane sound. when we shook the blades they did seem to wobble back and forth more than it should and made kind of a " wa wa" sound. One thing we didn't consider was that this nut was gigantic. About twice the size of the nuts that hold the tower together. We tried to tighten it with a pipe wrench but that would not move it. With the blades on, you really can't get a wrench in there very well. You really need a big socket to go around this or take at least one blade off. Here is a picture of what the nut looks like, under the hub cap.
I looked back at my youtube video - and saw that it was originally tightened down with a pipe wrench but before the blades were attached so there was some room to get the wrench next to the nut. You can also see that the shaft sticks out about 1/4" and now it is flush with the shaft.
We called Redriven to tell them our findings and that we couldn't tighten it ourselves. They said they would send someone next week to tighten this down.
you can use the downward force of the tower to push the blade flange up if you brace it against the ground. this will enable you to tighten the blade flange retainer nut completely.
ReplyDeletei would also recommend marring the remaining threads a little or even tack welding the nut in place. as i said before, because of the direction of the threads it will always tend to unloosen and you could lose the whole blade assembly.