Odd situation with shear pins and my blower

[grsthegreat]

Its possible that the pin broke off but the middle piece stayed in the hole thru shaft and caught in the outer hole enough to hold it together. Ive had that happen on my box mower.

 

[number two]

Have you been greasing the auger shaft grease fittings?
I assume it has grease fittings?
Since it was free after thawing,perhaps water/ice made its way into the shaft?
Good Luck!

 

[RobertEH]

Its possible that the pin broke off but the middle piece stayed in the hole thru shaft and caught in the outer hole enough to hold it together. Ive had that happen on my box mower.

I could see that happening - but the holes were rotated 180 degrees apart

 

[RobertEH]

Have you been greasing the auger shaft grease fittings?
I assume it has grease fittings?
Since it was free after thawing,perhaps water/ice made its way into the shaft?
Good Luck!

I grease the zercs at the start and end of each season, and in-between if it gets a lot of use. I also grease the auger chain. I have not greased where the shear pin connects the shaft to the auger but that might be good preventative care in the future.

 

[RobertEH]

A kerosene fired space heater will melt all the ice and snow out of the
snow blower in a half an hour and dry it out at the same time.

that is a better solution than a torch. Thanks

 

[RobertEH]

I don't know about your blower - Robert. My blower had two pins also. On the auger shaft and on the PTO shaft.

Some times the auger pin would blow for no good reason.

Rotate the entire assembly - by hand - to ensure it's not frozen up somewhere. I ended up purchasing bags of grade 2 and grade 5 machine bolts.

I have a mile long gravel driveway and ran the blower on an open station tractor. Drifting, blown snow was never fun.

I have a much bigger tractor and HD rear blade now. A whole lot easier, faster and less strain on my neck and shoulders.

Side note - I bought the blower used from a guy in Spangle - I think that is just 20 min or so from Amber.

 

[oldnslo]

What you don’t know is did both shear pins break from the same event or had the auger one been running with the sheared pin 180 degrees out for a period of time. Does your auger drive have a bolt parallel to the input shaft that connects the chain sprocket to a flat hub or a bolt thru the input shaft?

Our blower on the farm had the bolt thru sprocket to flat hub and it would occasionally spin part ways and kind of wedge the shear pin against the hub and keep running till next shock load. You may have combination of ice and friction that was plenty of torque capacity for fluffy snow.

 

[joeyd]

Robert,
Just a suggestion, since you purchased the blower used, double check on the grades for your shear pins. I'm not saying this had anything to do with your issue.
My Meteor blower takes a grade 5 on the PTO shaft and a grade 8 on the auger shaft. My first couple of seasons I thought I would be smart and go to a grade 2 on the PTO shaft and I would go through those like crazy. On wet heavy snows sometimes they would shear within 20 feet of each other. I think it was me losing my patience having to go so slow.
Once I went back to the correct grade on the PTO shaft, I rarely shear one off and I have learned to be more patient.

 

[RobertEH]

What you don’t know is did both shear pins break from the same event or had the auger one been running with the sheared pin 180 degrees out for a period of time. Does your auger drive have a bolt parallel to the input shaft that connects the chain sprocket to a flat hub or a bolt thru the input shaft?

Our blower on the farm had the bolt thru sprocket to flat hub and it would occasionally spin part ways and kind of wedge the shear pin against the hub and keep running till next shock load. You may have combination of ice and friction that was plenty of torque capacity for fluffy snow.

I will get a photo and show you how it is configured. not sure I fully understand the question. The shear pin runs parallel to the shaft, and perpendicular to the auger chain.

 

[RobertEH]

Robert,
Just a suggestion, since you purchased the blower used, double check on the grades for your shear pins. I'm not saying this had anything to do with your issue.
My Meteor blower takes a grade 5 on the PTO shaft and a grade 8 on the auger shaft. My first couple of seasons I thought I would be smart and go to a grade 2 on the PTO shaft and I would go through those like crazy. On wet heavy snows sometimes they would shear within 20 feet of each other. I think it was me losing my patience having to go so slow.
Once I went back to the correct grade on the PTO shaft, I rarely shear one off and I have learned to be more patient.

I spent hours trying to verify I had the correct pins when I bought it. the manual specified the following (I have the 15 series):

So the Drive shaft (auger) bolt was straight forward. Grade 5, 1/4x1" bolt. I attach it using a nylock nut

The Drive line was a mystery to me. Here is the bolt head that came out of it when it sheared last year:

I am thinking that since it was painted black (same color as the drive shaft, it was probably original. While the blower was bought used, it was only used for one season on a paved driveway.

I could not for the life of me find a Grade 6.8, and C1.6.6 is a specification that I had never heard of. I did some internet searches and talked to buddies and came up dry. I went to my Kubota deal (a Land Pride reseller) and they could not tell me definitively what the bolt grade was, and they did not have any in stock.

My friend reached out to the dealer via email, and got the following reply:

So grade 2 is what I am using.

I remember staring at the bolt options at the local HW store last winter and seeing another guy doing the same. I struck up a conversation and it turned out we were both looking for shear bolts for blowers. After 30 min of opening and closing little drawers I left - he was still looking. As I left I said "Good luck and I'll see you back here tomorrow!