Really wanting to rebuild my “childhood” windmill. It’s an Aermotor A602. The hoop looks like it says 12/29 on it. To my knowledge it has been in our “family” since that time. My great grandpa’s cousins owned the land and then in the early 90’s my Dad purchased the land which brought it directly to us. This is the windmill that I grew up watching pump water for our cattle and started my facisnation with them.
In July 2006, the neighbors had a custom combining crew drop a hot bearing on a 90 degree day with 40 mph wind gusts and completely torch 1/3 of our grass land and basically all of the freshly stacked bales we had made to get us through the winter season. (Fun fact: that fire is used as a training example for fire entrapment in fire schools now after a report was done on it.) So we sold all our cattle and got out of the farming/ranching business and started leasing our land. I was about 12 years old when it meant its demise (2008-9ish). After not using it for several summers, I remember it spinning while being furled and my dad trying to tie a rope around it to stop it. Spring storm came along and the wheel spun itself right off. I was so sad when that happened but me being too young, and my Dad not owning cattle anymore it just never got fixed.
Here is what was left of it this summer when I got over to taking some drone pictures of it with the intentions of fixing it. You can see the remains of the wheel leaning up against the tower. I have no clue what the tower is, the bottom part looks different from the middle section and then it had an Aermotor stub tower on top.
This fall we got it down. It would not come apart from the mast pipe at all, so we took the whole stub tower along with it. Not the most optimal but it worked.
Getting it apart and into the shop I have a few questions with the pictures below in corresponding order:
1. Where the main gear saddles on the case, there’s a chip off one of the corners where I’m assuming the Babbitt lays? Is this going to be an issue?
2. The snout has tons of wear. I’ve seen “rebuilt” 602 cases that look like they have a new tip put on them. What does that consist of?
3. Mast pipe has a pretty good lean to it, probably worth replacing?
I know that pouring Babbitt can be a challenge but I would really love to try it and learn. This is my childhood windmill after all and I think I can do it.
Here’s a few other pictures of some of the remaining if you guys see anything of significance. Some of the spokes are in decent shape but some are just absolutely mangled. Also a picture of the hub.Edit: fixed report link
