jakel draft inducer for Rheem Gas Furnace

I've got a bad one...what has happened is the three screws that mount the motor to the housing have vibrated loose and the fan blade is rubbing on the housing. Problem is in order to access the three screws, I need to remove the squirrel cage. It looks like it is pressed on and I have not been able to budge it loose. I have not gottten real rough with it yet, but am afraid ll screw it up if I do. Any Thoughts?

Thanks
Jim

Normally these inducer assemblies are not considered field repairable.SOP is to replace the whole thing.I have never tried to remove the blower wheel,never seemed cost efficient.

I got this off the web.

To replace a motor it is necessary to remove the blower wheel or fan blade from the motor. If the fan or blower does not come right off (sometimes it will) the best way to do this is to use a puller that will pull the hub off of the shaft. DO NOT use a hammer to try to drive the shaft though the hub, you will just distort the shaft to the point where you will have saw the shaft off or just buy a replacement fan blade for your new motor if the fan blade is in bad shape.

Here's the link I got that from:

http://toad.net/~jsmeenen/motor.html

The fan could be a press fit. The only way to get it off would be with a puller, then you'd need a press to put it back on. If you are agressive with fan blades, you often can distort them and then the out of balance will wreck the motor bearings quickly. Maybe you could rig up a big extension to a wrench or offset screwdriver and get to it without removing the fan blades.