Snow blower auger.

[JDGolden]

I have a Craftsman 2 stage snow blower, and at the end of last season it made an odd noise when the auger was engaged. It sounded similar to the noise a gear drive would make. I was not able to locate anything caught in the auger, and the shear pins are fine. However, the machine didn't really discharge any snow. I put the machine away and decided that I would look into it at a later date, then spring hit and I started doing maintenance on my mower to get it ready for mowing.

Today, I changed the oil (synthetic, of course) and put fresh gas in it so that it's ready for this coming winter. I don't notice the whining noise any longer, but since there is no snow on the ground I cannot test the machine. I took a video with the auger engaged. I know it's not the best video, but from the looks/sounds of it, is my machine ready to go?



Thanks

 

[JeremyManning]

Check inside the gearbox in the middle of the auger, you may have stripped the gear

 

[JDGolden]

Check inside the gearbox in the middle of the auger, you may have stripped the gear

Does something look/sound off? I have more free time this weekend, I will check it out.

 

[JeremyManning]

Spin the drive shaft by hand and hold the auger and see if drive shaft continues to spin

 

[JDGolden]

Spinning the drive shaft makes the auger move. Guess I will see if it works when first snowfall hits.

 

[5mall5nail5]

Its almost impossible to damage the gear box as the shear pins would break (by design)

 

[Dustball]

That would be false.

I've had a snow blower where the worm gear ate its way through the gear box housing due to heavy loads and lack of lubrication.

Shear pins protect the gearbox from sudden shock loads but do nothing for sustained heavy loads.

 

[JeremyManning]

Yes my experience that with wet or deep snow you can strip the worm gear, if the everything on the blower is working properly but it is not moving snow it is likely the worm gear in the gearbox.

 

[Skin]

those particular gearcases rarely go wrong. They're sealed units with grease inside. What tends to fail is the crappy plastic bushings supporting the outer sections of the shaft. The other common failure is people leaving snow in the machine which then freezes, they go to pull it out during the next snowfall, engage it, and the belts cook as the impeller is frozen.

By the way drop your skids down a bit, they should be lifting the shave plate up. Go to a flat surface, stick something about 1/4" thick under the shave plate, drop the skids and retighten.

Its almost impossible to damage the gear box as the shear pins would break (by design)

In theory. The Ariens cast aluminum gearcases have a nasty habbit of leaking from the rear seal and if its not taken care of or topped off they'll shear. It was enough of a problem that they've switched essentially all models to 1pc cast iron designs. The most common gear case failure is caused by neglect of the rakes themselves where they end up rusting to the shafts, makes the shear pins pointless.

 

[5mall5nail5]

Interesting, though all new snowblowers I and my friends have had properly shear the the pins. I haven't seen a bad gearbox on one in many years.