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

Have a 10 year old Toro 824.. Has been a trouble free machine.. Mostly just oil changes and occassional belt tightening, oiling etc.. 

Today did the whole driveway and noticed the last pass I was not throwing snow like normal.  Determined that auger was not turning.  Impeller yes auger no.  Seemed the auger was slightly scraping the asphalt.  Raised it up using the guides it is free and can rotate by hand but while (by hand) I can turn the shaft from the impeller the auger is not driven?

I assume there is a gear inside the aluminum housing that may be bad?  Any assistance appreciated.  Is it replaceable by a not real handy mechanic?!

Thanks for all the posts..

Checked the shear bolts  -  solid..  Must be the worm gear or helical?  Anyway not sure if I can repair it or have to have some one take a look.  M# 38542 S# 990572.

What I think happened is in moving it into the garage on an angle I might have bent the auger housing by hitting the garage floor lip -  slightly lowering the height of the auger to the ground?

OK I've made the leap towards doing it myself... Have the housing off the auger removed and just the auger and impeller shafts and helical/worm gear unit left.  Am trying to get the impeller shaft removed from the impeller itself w/o luck,  Given the prices I have seen for the worm gear unit, $300+ I want to make sure that is the issue before I order one.  The impeller shaft is connected by two shear? bolts but they have a brass? casing that fits into the shaft.. any advice? 

Removing 50 and 52 is not going to make the auger drive slide out from the impeller at least usually not for me.

The impeller will be rusted to the drive shaft.  The auger assembly and impeller together are held to the intakehousing

by the auger support bearing in back of the intake housing along with it's bearing flanges 39-41. 

Usually the bearing is rusted to the drive shaft so the auger assembly can't easily be pulled off. 

The flange and bearing won't go through the hole in the intake housing.   You have to take off the support bearing

and remove the flanges to get the auger assembly out leaving the impeller inplace. 

Thanks for your well thought out and visual reply.. appreciated.  I did go on Toro's site and saw what you had described.  Funny thing is I opened up the gear case and the helical and worm gear look fine.. No real wear and no metal shavings etc.  Not bone dry - not even close.

Can the helical slide off the key that it sits on?  I am going to attempt to put it back together and see if I can't get the gears to mesh correctly.. reassemble fill it with oil and see if it that is the ticket.  The pain is the reassembly to make sure I have the augur shaft and impeller shaft seated and centered properly before I can see if I have got it correct.  If I bolt back the gear housing though I may be able to tell pretty quickly.

If the gears did not mesh correctly or slid off it's key you'd have known that already.

It probably won't slide off the key unless something else is broken like a holding collar. The gear is usually on there pretty tight and is not kept in place only by the key. In line with the auger shaft the blades ride on are other parts that keep it inplace. The key for one direction and other things for 180 out.

It's key could break so the thing to check now that you've got it open. It's possible that it's fine so makes some of your reported observations suspect. By the way I did the same exercise last week.

My auger blades were not turning, shear pins were fine and the drive shaft and impeller turning. The only thing it could have been was the key. The key was found to be fine so where did I go wrong?

I had setup a big mirror infront of the intake housing to watch everything before deciding that was the problem. The impeller was turning fast but not the augers - shear bolts were fine and the impeller attached to the auger drive shaft so ??? The answer is I flubbed up somehow. If your key is ok and probably is you somehow got the observations wrong.

After talking all this over with a dealer he says it will turn out to be my belt slipping. I was at another dealer later in the day getting a replacement belt and after showing him my old belt he said I bet you had some thumping on the augers. I did and he pointed out a 5 inch worn spot on the belt bottom v part. That created two humps at the ends of the worn section.
When I watched with the mirror I saw the auger assemply pusling. That helped me to guess (wrongly) that something was broken inside the auger gearbox.
I'm buttoning it up tomorrow with a new belt and I'll bet the machine will be fine. So on an outside chance maybe you've got the same thing. What's the belt like?

Also, most gears have teeth with a pyramid shape with the top flat. When the gear is warn to where the flat is a point, the gear is too worn. The flat section may have a slight bend to it but the bend is a concave flat. So it's teeth are shapped like a saw horse sort of made from 2x4's. The top 2x4 is flat. If the top is a point the gear is too worn to use.

Trouts2, I just want to say that your explanation are very good, a must here on OPE, stay around my friend, we need expert like you dude, keep the good work Okay!

Belts are fine.  DId take a look.  However if the impeller is turning and the auger is stationary (not pulsing or moving at all ) then it has to be in the gearbox.

I'm just reviewing here waiting to see how you made out.

Two days ago you said the shear bolts were fine.

Yesterday you said:

The impeller shaft is connected by two shear? bolts but they have a brass? casing that fits into the shaft.. any advice?

It seems like you were not so sure about what the bolts were and possibly thinking they were a casting. It could be that bolts are missing - broken off so you're not seeing them.

In the drawing below 60 is the shear bolt and the brass casing probably the support bearing and holder 57, 58, and 59.

If those are all ok then it's probably a broken gear key seeing that the grease was clear. Also you had been running fine except the shoes loosened and your augers hit so a shear bolt or key likely to have broken. The design is for the shear bolts to give first but..... 

You were putting it together but did not mention the condition of the gear key. What happened with the key? Was it ok?

dawei