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

i'm interested in buy a 24in simplicity snowblower for a driveway i'll say 60 x20 with a small slope upwards from the house. same engine and torque as the L1226E. aluminum gear case though. any kind of help will appreciated.

jack wrote:

Yes. You should clean up the axle and put any decent marine or snowmobile grease on axle shaft and inside wheel. You don't need to get down to shiny steel on the axle. Just get any lumpy stuff of of it. I find that medium grip sand paper is good for that. If you have no supply of grease nor a grease gun, you can get a small single hand operated grease applicator and grease for less than $20.00 at any large auto parts store. You'll need the grease gun to lube the auger shafts and any other component with zerk fitting sticking out of it. As Mikiewest says, it would be beneficial to learn something about the equipment and do as much work as you can. As previously mentioned, the shop rates at some service outlets are utterly ridiculous. You can do a bit of preventative maintenance now and it will save you big bucks down the road.

I need to replace the auger belt on my simplicity snowblower.I followed the manual but can't pull the belt out between the auger pulley and drive belt pulley..There is not enough clearance  Any suggestions?

I just wanted to add my $0.02 on the gear box lube issue. When I rebuilt my 20 yr old MTD I opened the gear box to find that the grease had "dried up" and crawled into the far recesses as Snowman mentioned. There is no opening on this unit, so no way to add lubricant short of dissassembly. When talking to the older gent who does OPE repairs here in town, he suggested to drill a hole in the gear box so you could add a bit of gear oil once in a while. Would the oil mix with the grease or would it behave like oil & water.

There also seems to be a run on Ariens gears this year which leads me to believe that despite what the manufacturer says (planned obsolesense), you should always plan on having to crack the gear box to replace the grease (if that is what they use). I guess frequency would depend on use, ie. more often if you do a lot of heavy wet snow & EOD.

Snowman, if the manufacturer calls for NLGI 1, could we safely drop to an NLGI 00 to ensure proper lubrication of the gears?

Thanks

GtWtNorth, the gear case may not be capable of sealing such a low viscosity grease. I would recommend you use the NLGI 1 again, just use a synthetic EP version.