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

I have a older (not sure what year mid to late 80's) ariens st824 dual stage blower, and I was given it to me for free with pretty much nothing wrong with it just needed some tlc, so I stripped it down and sanded it down so the metal and removed as much perosity and rust as I could it, the primed and painted it and what not, well I never removed the auger when I did that, but when I got it all back together, I was running it and making sure everything was working, well when its in gear It lurches forward and then has trouble going further, well Im pretty much positive that, thta is the friction wheel thats gonna need to be replaced its pretty wore down. But then I noticed that the auger will like grab and spin then give out and then grab again and spin, Which brings me to the conclusion that there is a possible tooth broke in the auger gear box, So my question is I have the little triangle peice off the back of the shaft, so now from there How do I remove the whole auger assembly, I have to remove the 3 screwes on on eachside of the blower I would suppose, and then what do I do from there, Advice is greatly appriciated, thanks.

   With both the drive and augers slipping a possibility although very remote could be a sheared drive pulley key that catches now and then.

   For the drive: flip it on it's bucket, remove the bottom plate, tape down the drive clutch and try turning the wheels by hand and see what's happening in there.  Try lifting up on the hex shaft or move the drive plate with a big screwdriver to see what's loose.  I have seen friction disk rubber that had uneven wear like an egg. 

   For the augers: pull the sparkplug and stick your hand in through the chute and move the impeller by hand.  Hold onto the augers at the same time so they have resistance and keep turning the impeller to see if you get a skip.  You can put a 3 foot stick through the augers to ground to hold them fixed and turn the impeller.  If you have a worn worm it will slide over the gear teeth which could be worn also. 

    If you only have a worn or broken auger gearbox gear and the worm is ok I know a guy who has a few.  The factory recommendation is not to put in a gear because they are matched i.e. worm to gear.  With machined parts I find that hard to understand and don't know what the issue is.  Years ago you could buy individual part numbers so they were probably machined the same.  They later changed to only selling assemblies.  Those could have been different i.e. different worm angle but I'm not sure about that.  I have swapped good gears for worn ones in MTD, Ariens and Toro which have worked for years. 

    Ariens does not offer single gears for the old aluminum gearboxes which yours probably is.  They sell only the assembly for around $200 which is a cast iron replacement.