Shear madness

[hayden]

I'm ready to pull my hair out - oops, it's already all gone.

I ran my snow blower over our road yesterday and blew out four, yes count them, four shear bolts over the course of 2 hours. It's maddening.

They are shearing for good reasons, like rocks caught in the impeller, but I'm getting real tired of replacing them every five minutes. I started to get a new drive shaft with a slip clutch this fall but was unable to get the old drive shaft yoke off the input shaft to the blower gear box. It's totally frozen on. So I figured I'd rough it through another season. Try again. I'll find a way to get it off.

Question is, does anyone run a snow blower with a slip clutch? I actually have two shear bolts, one on the drive shaft itself, and the other on the shaft that drives the big corkscrew thing in the front. It's the corkscrew drive that usually breaks, and I'm worried that a slip clutch will protect the drive line but not slip before the corkscrew shear bolk breaks. Anyone have experience with this? Once I replaced the shear bolt with a harder one and promptly blew out the #50 drive chain.

 

[Thomas]

Peter,
Least you found out what was causing the pins to shear..rocks.
Maybe by lifing your blower a tad more might help on the rock problem,also someone could do a quick plowing to scoot the rocks off to the side??

If you go to a stronger plus shear pin,in the long run you may do more damage $$$.

I agree changing shear pin while removing snow is a hair puller.

Thomas..NH /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[RAllen]

Hayden

I know how you feel. On our private road, there are two families who use a truck mounted plow. They do not seem to know when to leave well enough alone and continue to plow through the base, picking up sweet potato sized rocks and bury them just under the surface. So far this year, 6 shear bolts and one chain.

I was told a slip clutch would not work on a blower- don't understand why. Love to put one on my unit.

Fixin to to go get a new chain

Rick

 

[Egon]

RAllen:
The slip clutch may not work because of of the rotational inertia of the moving parts.
Egon

 

[RAllen]

Egon
I think your are right. Talked with the folks at my dealership when I picked up my replacement chain. The front PTO rotates at a very high speed- much higher than 510 rpm and the mass of the auger is such that the slip clutch would either provide no protection if too tight or would be constantly slipping. Anyway, thats their opinion as to the why there is no clutch.

Rick

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by RAllen on 12/27/01 01:37 PM (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[snowman]

You have my sympathy.

I had the same problem last year - I was overjoyed if I ever was able to clear the whole driveway with even half of the auger still going. Ended up using the blower as a plow most of the time.

I "fixed" my problem by paving the driveway this summer. Before I decided to do that, I purchased a rear blade and was going to use that for snow removal and save the blower for the bigger snow.

I see you have a 3 pt blower, so you can't add a blade.

I also was having a problem with the skid shoes in that they would come lose almost right away.

I even considered adding some type of mesh along the bottom front of the blower with a small enough "mesh" to keep rocks out, but let snow in. That would probably work okay in powder, but the blower would ride up on the wet snow.


The only suggestion that I have is to (a) keep the blower up a bit, which is easier said than done, or (b) put some of those mushroom shape skid shoes on to keep the blower following the contour of the land.

 

[hayden]

I went shopping for a slip clutch yesterday and had no luck. The input shaft to the blower is a 1 1/4" keyed shaft and I can't find a clutch with that on one end. They all seem to be 1 3/8 keyed or 1 3/8 splined. I'm also still concerned that even with a slip clutch I'll be blowing out auger shear bolts.

I'm instead going to work on keeping the stones out in the first place. Most of the problem seems to be catching stuff when I either get too far over to the side of the road and start cutting into the bank, or when it starts digging into the road surface and pops up stones. In nut shell, I think the skid shoes are useless, and in some cases are actually working against me when they dig into the ground and pop up stones rather than skidding across. This of course becomes less of a problem when the ground is more frozen, but I'll have to kill myself first at this rate.

Tonight I'm going to buy some plate steel and make skiis to replace the so-called shoes. I think if I can really keep the blower edge up off the ground I'll be fine, and I figure skiis will enable it to float better. I'll weld them on this weekend and we'll see what happens.

Peter

 

[RAllen]

Hayden

Think you are on the right track. Please let us know how the larger shoes work. I will have to pay someone to weld them on so I will let you be the guinea pig [grin].

My unit is the 2772 front mount. Kubota does list a heavy duty kit that includes a replacement cutting edge and larger shoes with three bolt attachment points instead of the two. You have to drill another hole for mounting. The shoes are larger but do not seem alot bigger. I think your solution may be better and probably cost less.

Rick

 

[hayden]

I'll let you know and hopefully post some pictures too. I got the metal stock last night and am heading up to tractor land tonight.

 

[tbarber]

Why can't you add some wheels instead of the shoes ?
Just a thought, they may roll insted of digging in.
Tom