Snowblower Repairs - Improvised Gear Puller

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Snowblower Repairs

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Improvised Gear Puller

Ok,so moving back away from the gear box to the end of the shaft and auger. Because the center shaft sticks out beyond the end of auger it leads one to consider using a gear puller type of mechanism to remove the auger.

You can't pull on the outer rim of the auger, you need to grab it close to the center, etc. SO what finally materialized was a large bearing separator clamped around the auger at the end, with 2 - ½ inch bolts connected to a ¼ x 2 inch angle iron as an improvised gear puller. (this photo was taken when I had already gotten the auger part way off..)

SO I got out the long handled wrenches and tightened up both of the ½ bolts.... And I tightened them some more.. Fortunately nothing bent or snapped. And I added more penetrating oil. And I waited....

And I got out both of the propane torches I own and headed the auger up.. And I heated the auger up.. And basically I only succeeded in cooking what little oil had penetrated into the joint back out of it.

I whacked on the sides of the auger with a small hammer to try jarring it loose.. I whacked on the end of the puller and the shaft with a BIG hammer trying to knock it loose. But NOTHING MOVED.

No Joy in Mudville.

At this point I was quite literally stumped.. I couldn't get this into the press to press on it.. and the biggest puller I could make was not moving it. I had used penetrating oil, heat, gear pullers, hammers and torches and nothing was moving.

So I let it sit, while I worked on machining the replacement blower shaft. You really don't think that Toro, who bought out wheel horse, REALLY stocks replacement parts for 40 year old equipment do you?? Just me, a piece of ¾ inch diameter ground drill rod and my Chinese Minilathe..

Well, I happened to be explaining my dilemma of the stuck auger to my friend that owns the hydraulic press and he got to asking questions and finally we arrived that the point of; “Well, can you split the pipe that makes up the center of the auger open? Can you spread it at all?”

I have some really thin metal cutting disks for my angle grinder, and I used them to cut a groove down as much of the length of the auger's center pipe as I could.. Then I took a cold chisel and hammer and did the best I could to make the groove wider.. I also now had a way to pour Kano Kroil penetrating oil into – onto the center shaft via the slots..

I let that soak over night and then I put my puller back on and tightened it up and finally things started to move.. I FINALLY got one of the augers off of the shaft.

I started this project back in September, its now Christmas vacation and I have been working on this all day every day this week, in order to finally get to this point.

Of course the auger now has a groove cut down most of the 'hubs' length, but the auger is FINALLY OFF of the SHAFT.

After much wire brushing of the center shaft and sanding the inside of the pipe, I welded up the grooves I had cut and reassembled everything with new seals, snap rings, etc. Added grease zerks and LOTS and LOTS of grease on the auger shaft.

It is amazing that the iron worm and brass spur gear showed no real wear after 40 hears of use.. I guess any kind of grease is better than NO grease at all. And 'Made in the USA' really used to mean something.

By the way, getting the second auger off of the shaft was not a whole lot easier.. I had it in the press, now that the gear box and other auger were out of the way.. and with a 12 TON jack in the press it WOULD NOT MOVE until I basically cut it open like the 1st auger..

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