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

I just used my 1350 for the first time (bought used about a month ago, but only a year old)... 944.527394 (well the model doesn't show up, but that's the right number - it's a 27 inch OHV B&S 1350 series 305 cc machine) It snowed about 5 inches of snow a couple of days ago and of course I had to deal with the snowplow "droppings" at the end of the driveway. It went through it all pretty good. Good shooting of the snow and no problems with things when I was blowing the snow. I come out to the garage the next morning and I thought 5 or 6 dogs took a leak on my garage door from the pool of yellow liquid I saw. I open up the garage door and see this pool of yellow liquid under the front of the blower and going out and under the garage door. Question, would this be the auger gear oil? It says it takes Ronex ED #1 (Extra Duty) and I think it is yellow in colour, but wow that just baffles me as to how much was there. After that there seemed to be some light green liquid there too. Maybe the other guy coated it with something, but I'm afraid to start the blower for fear of destroying the auger casing. No gas smell and the oil level is perfect at the fill level... Before I start taking things apart, I'd appreciate some input as to what this likely is and what I need to do (new auger gearcase maybe, new auger gasket,) Also good place to get parts in Canada? I see that these are Husky machines, but not sure if Craftsman parts are cheaper than Husky or not. good info in these threads so hoping borat or snowmachine can chime in http://www.abbysguide.com/ope/discussions/32378-A-1.html http://www.abbysguide.com/ope/discussions/33989-0-1.html Cheers

ahhh ok, now I have the extended text editing capabilities... thanks to whomever adjusted that for me.

Update:  I have taken off the bolts to the gearbox assy and no fluid came out which means the fluid on the ground must have been from the gearbox assy.

I then found that the right bearing (looking at it from the front) seems to have some play so that is likely why the fluid came out as play in the bearing caused the gearbox assy to be forced open.  I will replace the front two bearings.  Tried to take the whole auger assy out, but can't get it to come out.  I believe I have to take the impeller pulley off to allow it to take the impeller and auger assy off...  I don't want to drill out the roll pin like others have mentioned as that would be way too hard to get at with normal tools...

Will try that tonight.

Cheers

Ok, so for an update: I finally was able to get all of the parts and the time to tear the whole blower apart. I replaced all bearings (auger and impeller), but there is still play in the gear box assembly moving up and down 1/2" or so) Had to use a bearing puller and some liquid wrench to get the old impeller bearing off. Also had to use jig-a-loo to get the new impeller bearing on. I topped up the assy with low temp gear oil instead of using gear oil. It seems that perhaps the gasket itself must be bad as there is still a very small leak of gear oil when it was fully topped up, but it just squeezed out a bit and then stopped. I will keep an eye on the gear oil to see if it leaks out, but it ran well and threw the snow pretty far...I'll just have to keep a supply of gear assy plugs so I can keep topping things up. At some point I'll have to change the gasket I suppose, but that seems pretty impossible to get the gear box assy apart. What do you do? Do you take the shear bolts off the auger assy on both sides? Installed new plastic sliders and a new impeller belt (old one had a nick in it)... Thanks for the help...

   If you have replaced the back impeller drive shaft support bearing (on the back of the intake housing barrel) and the two auger shaft bearings (each end of the auger support shaft attached to each side of the intake housing) then I don’t see how you could have a half inch of play at the gearbox.

 

Is the gray gearbox moving up and down ½ inch?   Is the auger shaft moving ½ inch?  What exactly is moving ½ inch?  For the whole assembly, gearbox and rakes to move that much the bearings must have that much slop but you just replaced them. 

 

If the pivot point of the movement is on the left facing side at the left bearing then moving the whole assembly enough to get ½ inch at the gearbox would be over an inch on the right side end.   That does not seem possible. 

 

If the flanes in the gearbox were that worn then whole auger axle would flop around so you could not throw snow. 

 

It is hard to see how you could have ½ in inch movement in the gray auger gearbox after replacing the side bearings.

 

For this part:

At some point I'll have to change the gasket I suppose, but that seems pretty impossible to get the gear box assy apart. What do you do? Do you take the shear bolts off the auger assy on both sides?

 

The time to have gotten the auger gearbox gasket was when you took the assembly out to get the back support bearing and the side bearings.  With that assembly loose you pull it out, take out the rake shear pins and slip off the rakes.  You can then unloosen the several screws in the gearbox and pull each half off the rake shaft.  It would have been good to get a look in there and replacing the parts not so expensive. 

 

I could not find an exploded view of the model number 944.527394 so not positive about the gearbox internals.  You can replace most parts with the rakes off and the gearbox opened up.  If the back augerbox seal is worn then you have to slip it on from the back i.e put on over the impeller drive shaft.  That requires taking off the impeller to get the seal in.  That’s assuming you have a single piece auger impeller shaft with a worm on the end.

 

With ½ inch movement in the auger gearbox I would not use the machine until that’s resolved.

Who the heck filed down those augers?

The plastic bushings on these units leave a lot to be desired. It may be the nature of the beast. I had a lot of slop too but it seems to have been mitigated by installing the Husky auger bearings on it. I know... I asked here and it was recommended against but I liked to tweak and tinker so went ahead with the mod. If it had some kind of auger support bracket that would probably help as well. I'll take a video of unit next time I use it so everyone has a base of reference for some slop in these units. Bushing http://picasaweb.google.com/audreyappliance/2008Craftsman145TorqueRatingSnowThrower#5274156118299089682 Bearing http://picasaweb.google.com/audreyappliance/2008Craftsman145TorqueRatingSnowThrower#5418162337376099938

I seriously have 1/2 inch play at the grey gearbox assy... If snowmachine had the same play then I'm ok with that. It is really sloppy for sure after all bearings were replaced and I can't see it being that great for it to not affect the worm gears or something in the gearbox assy...I might pick up those husky bearings. thanks for the info...it also has a 1/4 inch play side to side with the gear box assy. So I can move it up and down 1/2" and from side to side 1/4" along the auger shaft/hub... I put in low temp grease and so no leaks that I can see and I've run it about three times on a standard 25' long double car driveway... As I mentioned before I went into Sears to take a look at a brand new machine and they did not even budge. Yeah no idea why my machine model does not show up, but Sears Canada can find it without any problems :) Ok I can take the thing apart again. Pretty easy once you've done it. So it was the shear pins that I needed to take off...sigh... well that's not so bad... The manual is what snowmachine had from an earlier link...and like he said it is relevant even though not a Craftsman manual, they are the same machines except mine is a 13.5 305cc. Re: Craftsman 14.5 Torque Rating Snow Thrower, Model 917.881063 Reply #56 Dec 31, 2008 11:29 am Quote Service manual can be downloaded from here: http://www.mymowerparts.com/pdf/Husqvarna_Service_Repair_Manuals/W0302001.pdf It says Electrolux but it is still relevant. Electrolux used to be the parent company of Husqvarna IIRC. Service manual stuff starts at about page 23 No idea what you meant about my augers being filed down :)

Here are parts I used for bearing conversion

Bearing- http://www.m-and-d.com/AY-411833.html

Retainer - http://www.m-and-d.com/AY-188170.html

I don't think side to side will be totally eliminated unless the latest Husky bearing model were used in third link below.

Here is stock bushing setup:

Here is bearing setup that Husky used last year. 

Here is bearing setup that Husky is using this year:

I would have had to drill holes for the extra shear pins if I had gone current year. I also don't think the flat side of bearing shaft would have extended that far into the auger with my model.

steverons reference of being filed refered to the outer edges of the rake teeth being shorter than a new rake.  They seemed to be filed down.

If skids are set too high or worn out the rakes can hit the ground and grind down the rake ends.  If a driveway has many hills or moguls then the rakes will touch when the skids are in a trough.  That puts a lot of wear on the auger support bearings and gearbox parts. 

Run your fingers on the sides of the blade by the forward edge.  If scraping the edge will push out metal at 90 degrees making a very sharp edge lip you can slice your finger on.   May be the prior owner ran the skids down or had the skids too high.  Check the bottom edge of the bucket.  If the skids are too high that will cause wear there also.  I've seen buckets worn 1/2 inch off the bottom.

you would think that the wear on the augers would also involve wear on the scraper but the scraper looks new. Unless it is new. Someone had mentioned in a previous post that it might be wise to put a support bracket from the gear case to the upper intake housing, similar to what Simplicity has. That might help reduce the flex in the auger/gear case assembly.

Thorn:

If you installed the bearing below then it should mate closely with the auger shaft and have very little play or slop.  It’s got two mounting screws so could have some play but should be minimal.  Between the two the amount of slop might be a 64^th or 32^nd but no half inch i.e. enough to let whole shaft and gearbox move ½ inch with two new bearings installed. 

Something is up.  Either you ordered the wrong bearing, they sent the wrong bearing, the drawing calls out the wrong bearing.

 

OR: since snowmachine had a similar problem it may be a design problem.  It’s also possible that things got mixed up in manufacturing and the build guys or documentation guys got something mixed up.  Whatever happened no one designs a rake shaft with that much slop.  That’s the ½ in slop.

 

It’s the same for the ¼ inch slop in the side to side direction.  I assume the shaft moves as a unit i.e. the searbox is not moving with the shaft not  moving.  That the gearbox and the shaft move together ¼ inch side to side.  If that’s right then there’s too much play there.  Again the bearing is not right.  It could be the shaft is too short and thin allowing the slop but that’s too hard to believe.

 

The resolve would be to get the right parts by going over this with the factory.  Sears won’t help much.  If you end up with you have all the “right” parts, that is parts that they say are correct and still have the slop then I’d go for snowmachine’s mods.  He's got a ballbearing and obviously a better match.  Using the machine as is will only lead to premature failure. 

 

There should be no mystery here.  The slop should be visible and it’s probably because the support bearing is oversized.  It should be tight.  If it was tight and mounts securely then you can’t have slop.  They have to be the wrong bearings for whatever reason.