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

I keep reading about the multiple decades of service that sno-thros can provide with proper care and maintenance. That is part of the reason I spent more $ than I needed to on more machine than I needed; make it last and it will have been worth it.

 

I get the impression that rust is usually the killer of an aging machine. Mine has yet to see any snow (or salt) – still patiently waiting in the garage, though last weekend’s heavy dusting was tempting just to get it out. My question – to fight rust, apart from using car wax (?) does anyone use commercial automotive products such as “Krown” oil spray (www.Krown.com) designed for vehicles (Canadians will know what I’m talking about, eh?) to protect snow throwers?

 

One could buy the aerosol cans or bring the whole rig up to a location for a quickie spray. Any thoughts? Would it mess up any internals such as friction plates? The stuff sure works on cars, both of mine are year 2000’s driven in the Toronto area winter salt. The EOD would be full of the stuff to attack the sno-thro. Thanks in advance.

I wish it was that easy. The worst places for rust are the augers, bucket, impeller, and impeller housing. Those are the places where the sand and pebbles scrape the paint when you reach the end of the driveway.  Unless you want to make some stainless steel parts, you're going to have to just keep up with keeping those areas cleaned of salt and cover all the bare metal. The outside parts only need a good waxing.

I prefer to just keep a can of a non-evaporating (not WD-40 except for very short term use) light oil and spritz those areas once the machine has dried after each and every use. Then do a fast touch up annually, and then every 2-3 years do a sand, prime, repaint. Not a show car finish, just for protection - it's gonna scrape off soon enough anyway. If they use salt in your area you'll probably have to do a warm water rinse, even a bucket of hot water might be enough.

Someone on another post had suggested doing the EOD area first and then doing the rest of areas afterwards. This way the fresh clean snow (free of salt/sand) would be run through the bucket, auger, impeller and chute areas which would remove any of those contaminates. I never really thought about it but I always did the EOD first as my thoughts were to do the toughest area first in case something happened to my snowblower. I had my HS624WA for 10 years and that machine looked pretty good when I sold it this past August. There was no rust anywhere including areas of the chute that had the paint worn completely away from loose hardpack before I had my driveway repaved about 5 years ago. I always sprayed the inside of the bucket and chute with either PAM, spray furniture wax, etc... to minimize any sticking snow. This may have helped to stave off any rusting in addition to the cleaning process from the virgin snow.

There are some rust preventing/stabilizing measures below that are fairly easy to do and effective:

http://www.abbysguide.com/ope/discussions/50431-0-1.html

Rust occurring on the interior portions of the snow moving apparatus (impeller, impeller housing, auger assembly, auger housing is not preventable.  I lined the metal chute on mine with Wacky Karpet and it's working great.  It's got three years of hard service on it and is holding up very well.  An added bonus is that snow doesn't stick to the plastic lining.  

You can reduce the corrosion by doing salty areas first then doing the rest of the job in fresh snow.  That's what I do.  From my experience, exterior rust usually occurs where the paint has been removed by either scratching it or metal fatigue cracks.  Clean and paint them at the end of the season. 

I plan to apply some coats of krown throughout the winter season. Then at the end of the season, give it a good cleaning followed by a coat of krown and throw a cover over it for storage. My brothers 6 year old honda has no rust doing this.

Try AMSOIL's " HEAVY DUTY " Metal Protector, works great ! Comes in a Big Spray Can !

Thank you all! Great tips and strategies.