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

I have an Ariens 10M7D I picked up used last winter. At the time, I didn't know much about snow blowers so I didn't check the augers. Well, today I checked them, fearing the worst. Fortunately, the left side spins OK when I remove the shear pin. Unfortunately, the right side is *almost* stuck in place. I say almost because I am able to, with a great amount of force, rotate it around the shaft.

My question is, should I just grease it up real good and keep using it or should I see if I can get the auger off and try to clean out the inner bore as well as the auger shaft?

If you can get grease into it, by all means do so.  If not, try to get some penetrating oil in by spraying in the shear pin hole while it's not lined up with the through hole.  Tilt the machine to get as much in there as you can.  I'd probably do that before I'd put the grease in it if grease can be applied.   Put the penetrating oil in, spin the auger on the shaft once it gets freed up a bit then put the grease in.  After that, you should be pretty much set.

Thanks for the advice. I have some replacement zerk fittings so maybe I'll just pull out the existing ones first to get more penetrating oil in through those holes.