Snow Equipment Owning/Operating Snowblower impeller rubbing on housing

[FrankJG]

I blew a split of soft wood with my Normand Econor E72-240 and a small kindling got jammed between the impeller and the housing. The tractor stalled right away without breaking PTO shaft shear bolt.

After I managed to remove that stucked piece of wood, impeller is now rubbing on the bottom of housing. I did remove impeller to see if everything is straight and that every fins are straight, everythings seems to be ok.

Can someone have an idea what can be the problem ?

Thanks

 

[Peter 315]

If the shaft is straight maybe it bent the gear box mount a little......

 

[PILOON]

If the shaft is straight maybe it bent the gear box mount a little......

If so, try prying with a crow bar, that or possibly pounding a possible distorted bearing plate hole back to flat.
Most bearings are held (clamped) with 3 or 4 bolts and sudden shock loads can easily distort one or more of the mounting holes.
Happened to me.
Very last fix would be to trim the fan a tad but that would create poorer performance.

Is this a model with gear box in center of the auger? or is the auger driven by chain drive at one end?

My bet is U have an elongated bearing mount hole.

 

[FrankJG]

Its a standard model with a chain driven auger.

It makes sense that the problem would be behind housing wall therefore gearbox mount, cause everything seems to be straight but tilted downward. I'll take a look at that today.

Very last fix would be to trim the fan a tad but that would create poorer performance.

That was one of my idea after saying all the 4 letters words reassembling the impeller knees on ice at -20ｰC.

 

[ruffdog]

Being that the blower housing is probably just a weldment, where the gearbox bolts up probably got tweaked. Is there enough slop in the holes to just move the box a bit so it doesn't rub? Just as a test, make shims for the box mount so the impeller doesn't rub and run it for a while to see if everything else is OK.

 

[FrankJG]

So I removed the gearbox this morning. Theres no slop at all at the gearbox mount. Actually I had to hammer it with a wood block to get it out of there.
The 4 bolts holes are in good shape too. Bearings are good shaft is straight... I dont know what's the problem. I might just call the dealer mechanic to come and see $$. If it wasn't a 1 year old unit I would probably just grind the 1/8 inch that rubbing.



Theres the gearbox mount.

 

[PILOON]

I'd bet that the gear box is mounted in slightly oversized holes.
If you were to loosen all top and bottom bolts (8 I'd bet) and pry the box with a lever of some sort that you'd be re aligned.
Or a hammer and block of wood.
It stands to reason that the factory would drill slightly oversize for fine adjustment at assembly.
And possibility that lack of torqueing contributed to your problem.

Cutting back fan blades would be the very last thing I'd do.