Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

I just put in a new auger belt and noticed that the holes for the bolts that hold the front end of the blower to the back end where elongated. I also find that putting the bolts back on after replacing the belt is a real pain. part of the reason is that the nuts that were welded to the inside of the chassis, in line with the holes, fell off two years ago and it take a bit of fiddling to get the regular nuts to not fall into the bottom of the housing.

I've been trying to come up with a modification that will make it easy to open and close the pulley area. I want to make it as easy as possible to change and adjust the belts outside in cold weather with a minimum of tools, preferably while wearing gloves.

One trick that I find helps a lot is to tie one end of a ratchet tie down to the handles and to hook the other end to the top of the auger housing. You can then use the ratchet to pull the two pieces together so that the bolts holes are in line.

  hey  nibbler,  try this.  figure length of bolt needed.  figure the diameter of elongated hole, might need to drill.    take new bolt and screw on a flange nut,  insert into hole and put on another flange nut.  tighten the  nuts and put some spot weld onto them.   being the nuts are welded they are not going anywhere,  this will also strenghten

I don't know how well this would work, but what about attaching the clamps the use to hold poup camper roofs closed. They would be VERY easy to hook and unhook, and I think they would be able to hold it together fairly well.

Adam

I'll have a look at all three suggestions and see which one "fits" best with my mechanical abilities and what I want to be able to do. If there are any other ides out theire keep em comin!