Any chance I can fix my electric fan that got wet?

Cover the motor house in plain uncooked rice (like you do with a cell phone when it gets wet). Leave it a couple of days, shaking the rice around from time to time to put new dry rice in contact with the housing. Hopefully it will draw all of the water and yukkies into the rice and your fan can be saved.

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Here is an idea--let it dry out. LOL

Actually that is very important. A friend of mine is a TV repairman. He told me once that the biggest mistake people make when something electrical or electronic gets wet from flood etc. is to plug it in and see if it works (without getting it completely dried out in the first place. The electricity hits the water and fries the unit. He said he got as much business from that as just about anything else.

So I am going to go along with the crowd and say clean it out thoroughly and dry it out very thoroughly and be patient enough to be sure of both of those before a plug hits a socket.

And good luck with that.

Just as an update, and a few questions:

I've got the fan apart.

It did not want to run, and the motor smelled hot. It would move extremely slowly. With a little coaxing by manually spinning the fan blades, the fan started to run on its own!

I let it run for a very short while, and the motor is really hot.

A friend told me that any electric motor that smells hot is because there is resistance. Is that true? What is causing the resistance? The motor appears to be clean inside and out.

Are the oil cups inside the motor itself? This motor is bolted together with 5 small bolts. I was hoping to get lucky and find a label that said "OIL HERE", but I've had no such luck.

Thank you for helping me!!!! I consider myself above average in mechanical ability, but my greatest weakness is with electricity, electric motors, and electrical stuff...which is funny because my father is a Senior Electrical Engineer, Level III with a major power utility!!!

Maybe put a couple drops of fresh oil at the shaft where the blades meet will loosen it up a bit.

The motor is getting hot due to the resistance of trying to turn the fan shaft. You need to put oil where the shaft is either running through bearings or whatever supports the shaft. Oil at those points and turn the blade till it gets easier to turn by hand. After it turns easier, the motor will probably not get as hot.

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clovis
Look above the shaft at each end of the motor. Possibly there is a small hole about an inch above the shaft. If the hole is there it may appear to have a piece of felt in it. That is where most old fan are oiled. Without the power on, after oiling keep using you fingers to turn the blade until the blade turns freely.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!