As far as your observation of the tracks spinning on slick pavement, I can see that happening at full forward speed when you engage the drive lever. The tracks overpowered available traction. This is same as dropping the clutch at high RPM on slick surfaces, impressive wheelspin but doesn't there no forward motion. It wasn't clear whether you had the bucket in the lowest position (scraping mode). That would put more downforce on the front which in turn causes more resistance to the prevent the tracks from moving forward. In my operation of the hydrostatic transmission, I would start out at a low speed and gradually increase the speed. That's the beauty of hydrostatic transmission, you can drive it like a car. Engaging the drive at full speed puts a lot of stress on the drivetrain, something one would not want to do often.
I don't think the Honda auger needs zerks fittings. I checked out the assembly diagram and the auger is supported by bearings, not by a shaft that runs the whole side of each auger. One can pump grease in there but I don't think it will help.
Yes, it was down in the scraping mode/position when the tracks spun. Like I said, perhaps not a fair way to assess the power of the tracks, but that is the way I have always used my wheel blowers. I agree that engaging the drive at full speed puts stress on the drivetrain and might not be a good idea all the time on the Honda. This is why I kind of prefer the friction disk of the simplicity. You can do it all day long and not be concerned at all. I don't want to have to pull a lever to adjust speed everytime I make a turn at the end of the driveway. Most seem to feel the Hydrostatic is overkill and very reliable, but I get more nervous about the what if's when using a system the way I want puts excessive strain on it. I know I can change a friction disk myself, and I don't think the parts to do it are much more than $30 or 40 dollars.
I really may be wrong on this one, but I would look really close to the design of the augers. I believe the auger shaft on the honda and simplicity are supported by ball bearings at the ends. However the augers themselves simply sleave onto the shaft and are held in place by shear pins. The honda fits rather tightly on, and I didn't see how there could be room for any tipe of bearing. I did not see a way to get grease between the auger blade and shaft. I read in another post somewhere that their augers had seized to the shaft because of lack of grease. This defeats the shear pins and caused serious damage. Their auger assembly was replaced under warrenty luckly. They said they tapped and drilled to install there own grease zerks solving the issue. I asked my dealer about this, so we went and looked at the machines he had outside. He said he thought I was right and it was a plus for the Simplicity model. If I had the Honda I wouldn't necessarily be upset over this at all, but I definetly would be sure if this was a issue and install the grease zerks. It's really easy to do and completely solves the issue. Infact, even if they were actually supported by bearings, I would do this. If nothing else the small area between the shaft and tube can't fill with water that sits there causing rust if the void is already filled with grease. Simple solution that could make a great machine even better I think.
-----Came back to edit this post. I was surfing around different discussions on the blowers and came accross this;
Re: Greasing the auger shaft assembly
Reply #10 Dec 22, 2005 10:31 pm | |
You shouldn't have to weld a nut to the auger, as zerk fittings are usually self tapping. I would drill the hole, just past (clear of) the inner shaft, and fill the whole auger up with grease. I was going to do this on my Honda, but I discovered that if you remove the end bolts, the holes go all the way through, and you can just pump the grease in from there....
So it appears they have some method of getting grease in there after all. Not sure I fully understand what end bolt they are referring to, or how it would give access to any void between the auger shaft and blade sleave? Probably easy enough to figure out if you have the machine infront of you to look at. Hope it helps. Might add the grease zerks if it makes doing the job regularly easier anyway, guess I just like greasing things.
This message was modified Dec 31, 2008 by pgill
