B2782 Snow Blower modifying

[bumperm]

Bumper, I'm copying your lining of your snowblower. I purchased only 48" long material so I may have to have a seam in the 20" impeller housing. How is the liner attached inside the "tube".. --not the exit spout. Mine seems to have lots of room between impeller and barrel- like 1/2". I know you have a slot hole for expansion but not sure where that is.
Thanks, rob

Rob,

Not sure I understand your question completely, so forgive my "stumbling through it" answer.

For the impeller housing (not the chute), I could not figure out a good and easy way to joint two lengths to have a seamless liner. I thought about trying to weld the UHMW - and that might work. Also considered beveling and overlapping the edges of the two required pieces - but abandoned that idea too, and simply bought a whole sheet of 1/8" UHMW, cost a little over $100 IIRC and the company wanted an exorbitant amount for shipping - I told them to roll it up and they said okay, so shipping was about $25.

The impeller housing liner is mounted with two 10-32 screws and nuts at the "paddle entry" end, with the liner bent at an acute angle to mate with that lip and then the screws are above that bend out of harms way. It is the bend in the liner that is fixing the beginning of the liner in place so the impeller cannot pull it further around. The trailing edge of the liner (facing the front of the blower, this would be on the left side as the exit of the housing going up into the chute) the liner is fixed with a single 10-32 screw washers and locknut through a vertical slot in the liner to allow for thermal expansion and contraction.

Hope that answers your questions.

bumper

 

[srs]

SRS,

Sorry I missed your post & questions:

bumper, no problem. Thank you very much for the explanation on how you attached the UHMW to your blower. I kinda figured you had to countersink the bolts to prevent them from digging into any hard surface. Outstanding job! Thank you again. Stanley

 

[bumperm]

Latest mod lining back of box with curve to lift snow.

When blowing wet slushy snow, or snow over ice, often the snow get's pushed ahead of the blower and doesn't want to feed properly. Back up, bonk into the "snow bank" then it feeds. Hopefully this mod will address this. Will find out tomorrow. Couldn't hurt, as often snow is packed in at the bottom of the auger housing.

Edit to add: Okay, just tried it out - - works as expected, no snow packed along the bottom after shut down and no snow stuck to the UHMW (which is most unlikely anyway). It did, however, still push a little snow. With only a little snow 2" over slushy, I was moving faster than one would normally. "Push" is much less than normal. Expect at least a foot tonight, so will do a better test tomorrow.

 

[dnw64]

Latest mod lining back of box with curve to lift snow.

When blowing wet slushy snow, or snow over ice, often the snow get's pushed ahead of the blower and doesn't want to feed properly. Back up, bonk into the "snow bank" then it feeds. Hopefully this mod will address this. Will find out tomorrow. Couldn't hurt, as often snow is packed in at the bottom of the auger housing.

Edit to add: Okay, just tried it out - - works as expected, no snow packed along the bottom after shut down and no snow stuck to the UHMW (which is most unlikely anyway). It did, however, still push a little snow. With only a little snow 2" over slushy, I was moving faster than one would normally. "Push" is much less than normal. Expect at least a foot tonight, so will do a better test tomorrow.

Considering this is a "thermo" plastic, seems like the mfr could just dip the whole thing in a molten tub of the stuff and coat every surface!

On a more realistic note - great job on finding the friction bottlenecks and coming up with creative ways to reduce/eliminate them.

 

[bumperm]

Considering this is a "thermo" plastic, seems like the mfr could just dip the whole thing in a molten tub of the stuff and coat every surface!

On a more realistic note - great job on finding the friction bottlenecks and coming up with creative ways to reduce/eliminate them.

Thanks!

Next project: The tractor lives in a garage that kept around 40F in the winter, so the blower is above freezing. I'll sometimes spray Pam on the feed auger, but a better option would be to line the feed helix with UHMW too, just the drive face of the auger, as I've had the auger get completely loaded up with so much ice and packed snow that it loses much of its feed capability. Tentative plan is to make curved segments and mount each with a screw at each end, maybe a small slot at the "trailing" end of each segment to allow thermal expansion/contraction. Will probably take me until next fall to get around to it. Had back surgery a month ago that's going well, but all up it's taken me out of action for the better part of a year.

 

[PILOON]

Nice work at the lining job. That took patience.

Having been around blowers for a while and with friends in the snow removal business I come up with a few observations.
Most chutes are somewhat tapered, this is to increase the velocity which increases the distance and as a result creates a 'choke' that has the undesirable result of compacting wet snow and thus clogging the chute.
So the chute is one of the big problems.

The wider the fan chamber the higher the velocity and farther the goes the snow.

More fan blades the faster the exit or more volume.

The closer the fan gaps the better the volume and velocity.

In summery, I suggest fan gap sealing is effective as is poly addition to the chute.
The balance I believe are relatively less or non productive.

I had some wide heavy duty (8") tape that I lined my chute with early this fall and I have not had a single clog so far this winter.
You will note that many walk behind blowers now sport all plastic chutes.
Haven't yet closed my fan gaps but that is a project for this spring as is a preemptive change of all bearings as they are cheap.

 

[FatTire]

PILOON, what kind of tape?

 

[JWR]

In my first post I addressed the issue. The 64" length of UHMW I used was first placed in a freezer to cool, then measured and marked before putting in my hot tub. Then measured again and found to have "grown" by just under 1/2".

One end of the housing liner strip (blade "entry" end) is fixed in place with two machine screws. The exit end (where the snow heads to the chute) is NOT fixed in place in the lateral direction. There is a + 1/2" slot for the machine screw and fender washer to provide a sliding fit at this point to allow for the differential coefficient of expansion between liner and metal housing.

In use, the centrifugal forces imposed on snow will push against the liner to closely "mold" it to the steel housing. This will automatically adjust the slip fit end of the liner as needed to compensate for temperature variations. This sort, or similar, accommodation for expansion is an absolute requirement for my design to work, no question.

Forums are for helpful information AND opinions. First you have done a great job and I am impressed with the neat work. Second, I have to say that in my opinion you are overdoing it. The chute was worth doing. The rest of it (especially lining the big rotor duct and having to cut off the rotor tips for space) was a mistake. That will never, in my view do you any good at all and worse yet is likely to create problems in the long run. The expansion and contraction issue alone should have been a flag to do the chute and let the rest go. A great idea carried beyond what makes sense in my frank opinion. Time and experience will tell. Interesting regardless.

 

[bumperm]

The tape you will want to use is UHMW-PE (ultra high molecular weight polyethylene). This is the very same material I used to line my blower. It is the strongest long chain polymer known to man and almost as slippery as Teflon. Further, in many applications, such as aggregate chutes etc, it wears better than steel. 1" will stop a 45 at close range - amazing stuff, really.

The tape is available from Amazon and McMaster-Carr on-line. It is available in thicknesses from about 5 mills (.005") to 20 mills, one company is selling 1/32" thick adhesive backed strips on Amazon. But, be advised that the thicker tape will not do tight curves well (shouldn't be a problem on a blower) and non of it will do compound curves (i.e. if there's a small depression of bump or a curve going in more'n one direction, the tape is so strong that it won't stretch).

Now, not being a big dummy when it comes to avoiding extra work, I first tried lining my blower chute with UHMW-PE first (before using 1/8" thick material). This worked fine until I his some sharp edged gravel and that impact tore the tape. I was probably using 5 to 7 mill tape (I have a selection of width's and thicknesses as it's really handy stuff to have in the shop). So, the caution is, don't run over a bunch of gravel and the tape should work fine (and it's easy enough to replace anyway, (use a heat gun to warm first).

I may use tape to line the face of my auger and see how that works.

As to sealing blower fan blades - yes, that'll for sure increase throw. I did that when I lined by blower housing with 1/8" thick UHMW, as the gap was less than 1/8" so I trimmed the blades to fit - they are actually in contact with the plastic through the last part of their arc of travel (fan is not perfectly concentric with blower housing, unfortunately).

There are guys out there selling diaphragm or conveyor belt material as a "kit" to seal the ends of the blades. That'll work. I was going to make blade covers of the 1/8" thick UHMW, slot the mounting holes so the blades could move in and out enough to account of the eccentricity of my housing. My do that at some point - - it's just that it works so well now, I really don't need to mess with it. Last storm there was about an inch or two of melted slush ice under about 6" of heavy to moderate snow. The blower was throwing this stuff in a steady stream like a fire hose - not fanning out much at all. This was the sort of stuff that would have clogged up most blowers, I think.

This is 10 mill thick tape in various widths: TapeCase 423-1 UHMW Tape (Multiple Sizes): Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

If using tape, I'd suggest acrylic adhesive over rubber adhesive ( both are available).

 

[bumperm]

Forums are for helpful information AND opinions. First you have done a great job and I am impressed with the neat work. Second, I have to say that in my opinion you are overdoing it. The chute was worth doing. The rest of it (especially lining the big rotor duct and having to cut off the rotor tips for space) was a mistake. That will never, in my view do you any good at all and worse yet is likely to create problems in the long run. The expansion and contraction issue alone should have been a flag to do the chute and let the rest go. A great idea carried beyond what makes sense in my frank opinion. Time and experience will tell. Interesting regardless.

You are both right and completely wrong!!

The chute liner is probably the most important thing in terms of increasing throw distance and eliminating chute clogs. Before lining my fan housing, I was experiencing abrasion and wear from gravel and sand etc, especially when clearing snow plow berms. Striations around the circumference of the housing were indicative of the wear and abrasion as well. I painted the housing (one LAST time) and lined it. This accomplishes several things. Eliminated all wear to structure and adds an easily replaceable wear surface that has more abrasion resistance than steel, reduced friction losses between fan and housing, and closed up the gaps between fan blade tips and housing for more efficiency. In my case, the fan blades were not all of exactly the same length (now they are). If the fan was a little easier to remove, I would have dynamically balanced it too :c).

Yup, I'm one of those poor souls afflicted with the "how can I make this better" thing, when it comes to stuff mechanical. Drives some people nuts. But, not meaning to brag, that "character flaw" has served me well. In just one instance, netting over a million in patent royalties for a tool idea that took all of 45 minutes to design. Obsessive? Yes, sometimes, but in the case of the blower, well worth it, and should have been built that way from the beginning. Unfortunately, as we all know, most stuff is not manufactured with the primary goal of how can we make this better for our customers.

 

[FatTire]

Thanks for the info on tape. The cost of the tape is about 10 spray cans of Fluid Film. I would need the tape to last about 4 years or more to make it worthwhile, maybe tape isn't the way to go.

 

[bumperm]

Judgement call.

If one's tractor is parked in the cold, then there may well be less build up. When it's parked indoors, there's a tendency to melt/freeze and then build up to clog stuff. I know that even with spray, especially with slushy wet snow, I'd usually be out unclogging the chute a couple of times per storm. This winter I didn't have to unclog the chute at all. Throw distance is important to me as the apron in front of RV and house garage are wide. The blower easily launches the snow clear of the apron. With my previous Honda walk behind, I would be blowing the same snow two or three times. UHMW lining adds a good 20 to 30% distance, I'd estimate. Until I get my feed auger lined, I'll be spraying that. Nothing else clogs on my blower, with the slush under snow we've had, the auger loads up so it's just "bumps" going round and round and loses much of it's ability to feed as fast as the rest of the blower can handle.

 

[PILOON]

PILOON, what kind of tape?

It was an 8" wide probably 20 tho thick that an aircraft paint shop used to mask the windows when they applied paint stripper solution so as not to destroy the plexiglass windows. It was a freebee, left over from a job.
Has served me well on a variety of projects.
I once even applied to a snow sled but stones made for short life.

I know the best is UHMW poly as we used that on the bottom of aircraft skiis with a good life.*
They sell UHMW is sheets in a variety of thicknesses as well as rods, flats etc.

Some commercial snow contractors use UHMW as cutting edges on blowers and plows to prevent damage to the patio stone style driveways.
When a home owner spends big $$'s on his drive he does not want it all nicked and scratched by the snow contractor.

*while I never tried this technique I heard of a polyurathane product that some aircraft ski operators that painted a thick coating on their skis.

UHMW poly is a neat product, cuts with a saw, router can be molded with heat and vacuum shaped when heated all while being highly resistant to abrasion and as such not far below Teflon but less expensive .
Teflon is VERY slippery but snags and tears easily.

I machined some UHMW poly for my snow cute to rotate on and that works just great. (recently noticed a blower mfg. has added that feature on his product)

 

[bumperm]

The tape you want to use is UHMW PE (Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene). UHMW is the most abrasion resistant long chain polymer known. It is extremely shock resistant (1" will stop a 45 ACP round), is more abrasion resistant than carbon steel and is almost as slippery as Teflon. Snow does not normally stick to UHMW.

UHMW tape is available in different widths and thicknesses. Because of it's mechanical strength, it does not stick to compound curves where it would need to stretch - it doesn't stretch easily.

I guarantee no paist shop uses it for masking - too expensive!!

As tempting as it is to use as a chute liner, I tried that and it worked great, until I hit a bunch of sharp crushed gravel. The thin, .006" tape I was using was caught between the steel chute and the impact of the gravel, it got cut away as one would expect. I lined the chute with 1/8" thick UHMW and no more issues.

I apologise all the pictures have been taken down by our "friends" at photobucket. I'm sure not gonna give them $400 a year.

 

[dnw64]

I did consider using slotted UHMW paddle liners that would move to maintain contact with the housing wall face (and I may still do that - there would be zip for wear between the two surfaces and the moving paddle liners would help prevent any foreign object from getting between the paddle and housing/liner. It should also slightly increase efficiency over what I have already done.

Did you ever do this?

 

[bumperm]

I have had ice build up on the fan blades in slushy conditions, but it's not common and easy to clear. I'm still interested in experimenting with this but have other chores stacked up after over a year of down time. Back surgery last Feb has improved mobility a bunch!

 

[whatever1]

I lined my chute with 1/8" and recently had a some wet snow and slush to test it. I purposely went into the snow after the plow driver went by. It worked great, just threw the snow out. No clogging at all.
Thanks bumperm for your detailed posts. Looking forward to see how you will do the augers

 

[bumperm]

Still thinking about the augers, that's a toughie. 2nd picture in post one of this thread shows the chute ends of the blower housing liner. The housing liner was the most difficult part of the job. It failed the other day, tearing at the acute angle where it goes from chute to housing. It had been impacted by some stones or debris, hard enough to slightly dent the steel underneath. This area should have been protected by steel lip or?

When it came loose, impeller blades wrapped it up and sent the loose end up the chute. Snow then pushed in alongside it and bogged the machine down. I abandoned the idea, figuring making impeller blade liners would seal to the housing just as well, which improves throw distance - as does the failed liner. But the paddle liners would have some advantages. No more sticking snow building up on the blades and super easy to do (as compared to the liner)

After cutting out the liners, it took about an 1-1/2 hours to install. In the pic below, the holes have been drilled first in the liner, and then down through the blade. The black spots are the swarf from drilling. I was going to use 1/4-20 bolts, washers and nyloc nuts - I ended up using some 1/4" X 3/4" hex head sheet metal screws.

The pre-drilled liner is place on the blade, with the blade turned to the position where it has the least clearance from the housing. The blade is then pushed outward so it butts against housing and then clamped as shown. Not shown, the leading edge of the "wipe" has a slight 45* bevel. I chose only to line the "flat" of the blade, not the upturned edges. I figured if I bent the UHMW-PE to line the edge, debris would get jammed into the gap.

Ran it today for 4 hours - flawless!

 

[Michford]

Great idea, and thanks for posting your pictures. Also thank you for sharing both the good and bad with what you found wuth your liner on the different areas of your snowblower.

 

[bumperm]

You're welcome. Wish I could figure out a good way to line the auger faces with 1/8" UHMW also. Only way I can think of is to make an pattern of a section of the helix face, transfer that to the plastic sheet, and cut them out. They'd them be attached to the driving or inward side of the auger using either small bolts or self tapping screws every 6" or so. That way the steel edges would still get the brunt of ice impacts etc. Any failure or breakage would be limited to typically one section. It might work.

What I find now, is that when conditions are wrong, I can get build up from the OD of the auger all the way to the shaft at an angle, making it auger look like a section of a big screw. Lot's more friction, slower feed, and tends to push a pile ahead of the blower. Spraying the auger with silicone or Pam helps, though not for long.