As of this morning both fans have failed.

The theories I'm working on are:

1. Grease was too thick/hole too small so not enough actually got where I wanted it

2. Hole was in the wrong place.

3. Debris or damage to the sub-surface layer is creating additional drag.

4. Both fans are DOA and not resuscitatable.

1 and 2 I can work with.. 3 I can’t do anything without breaking the fan open and I’m not confident that these are able to be reassembled in working order.  And 4 doesn’t really have a good solution given the lack of replacement parts.

Plan of attack: (fails cascade to next letter)
A.   Buy some Tri-Flow as suggested by abracadabra and apply to existing holes.
B.   Drill new larger holes at the 8mm-10mm offset suggested by SlaveInDebt and apply SuperLube
C.   Tri-Flow on the new holes
D.   
E.   Profit!?