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

Hello - first post! I've finally had enough of the awful quality of my Troy Bilt snowblower. The box is rusting apart and I had to replace the transmission last year. The joystick to control the plastic chute is a joke. So, I decided to search CL and found a very well kept Honda HS624TA snowblower. Love the engineering from the simple controls to the brass worm drive on the chute! What do you guys recommend I do to service it this year? What areas should be greased? What do you do to keep the box as rust free as possible? Thanks!

Never owned a Honda snow blower, but from what I've read, their augers have a tendency to rust solid and are very difficult to remove once that happens.  If I recall correctly, they don't have zerk fittings to grease the auger shafts.  As such, they must be taken apart to lube them.  If rusted already, you may not be able to get them off.  Otherwise, I'd change the oil if it needs it, clean the spark plug, check fuel tank for water/dirt, check conditions of fuel lines, lube cables and any other moving parts requiring lube.  If the engine runs well, the carb is likely fine.  If not, it may need cleaning.  At the very least, I'd inspect the float bowl for potential debris/water.

Thanks for the quick response. It runs like a Honda - smooth and relatively quiet. I'll have to look at the augers to see if/how to lube them. The oil was recently changed, but I do need to lube the cable that controls the Auger actuation. It tends to release slowly, but won't hold down as it should when the drive control is activated. Is this a common problem on these machines?

Yep - Borat got that really right.  Get to that auger shaft right away, and, if it is not frozen then grease it up.  It'll cause no end of difficulty if it freezes and you ever have to get it off later.  And you really have no shear pin protection for the tranny if it is frozen.  Would be good to check the belts too, and lub the chute rotator mechanism.

Troybuilt used to put out some really good stuff.  I have a 31 year old 8 hp  "Horse" tiller that looks and runs like new - wouldn't trade it for anything.  But then they were bought out by, I think, MTD and went straight downhill from there.  Now being sold by places like Canadian Tire up here.

There are a couple posts here on how to lub the auger shaft.  See: http://www.abbysguide.com/ope/discussions/52200-0-1.html  and:  http://www.abbysguide.com/ope/discussions/51058-0-1.html

I don't know how the 624 is put together, but assume it is similar to the 928 that I have.  I dont bother to do the full dissassembly, but just pump some in from the ends as the one post says, and I do this at least twice / year.  You can also get some in from the center if you take out the shear pins.  The 928 does not have a full length auger shaft - the auger is supported on both ends for a short distance.  So it MAY be easier to free up a frozen auger with lots of time and penetrating oil.  But once they get really frozen its near impossible to free em up.  So...don't say "if" here!  If they are not frozen you are lucky - and you want to keep em that way.

Pumping on the ends won't get to them.

Either Remove them and drill out. add zerks fittings.

A lazy way I suppose if you don't want to do that is just to use some good Creep oil, remove shear and just spin and put shear back in.
I like Kroil as a Creep Oil

Thanks Dr. Woof for the links! Not sure I understand what you guys are referring to. When you say frozen, does that imply the auger will not turn? The auger on my machine operates like normal, although I haven't thrown snow with it yet.

Frozen means rusted together.  The augers are driven by  stub shafts which protrude from the sides of the auger gear box.  The auger/shaft assembly should have a shear pin through both to allow the stub shafts to transfer power to the augers.  If you remove the shear pins, you should be able to rotate the auger freely without transferring force/movement to the stub shaft.  If the auger and stub shaft do not move freely of each other, they're likely rusted together.  If the situation isn't too severe, with the shear pins removed, you might want to take a piece of 2x2 or similar and try a bit of leverage to spin the auger.  If that doesn't provide sufficient force, use the 2x2 as a drift and hit it with a good size hammer to try to shock the auger free.  If that fails, you have two choices.  Leave it and hope you never ingest something to lock up the augers or prepare yourself for a long tedious and likely to fail, process of trying to free the augers.  Personally, from what I've read, I'd take it to a shop and let them do the work.  It will cost you that's for sure.  However, they may have techniques and equipment to do the job.

Nope - the frozen auger and the shaft will turn as a unit, but since the ager and shaft are "rust welded" the shear pin is rendered useless.  Normally, if you chew into something hard, the shear pin will...shear, allowing the motor driven shaft to continue turning while the auger is stopped.  This prevents  damage to the transmission / power train which would otherwise be subjected to a severe shock.

You can check for a frozen auger by trying to rotate the auger on the shaft - there should be enough free play so you can see it rotate just a little.  Or, better yet, just remove the shear pins and see if the augers can be manually rotated on the shaft. 

The "full dissambly" method of greasing the shaft is probably the best if there is any doubt or if there is any resistance to turning when you check em.  Otherwise, if they turn quite freely, I'd just go with the easier way - but do it at least twice a year.  Since I bought my 928 new there was no doubt so I go the "easy way".  And I check frequently to see if there is any sign of freezing.

If you decide to go the full dissasembly route, make sure you understand the procedure before you start.  After you do this, you should be gtg for quite a while if you keep up the "easy"  lubs.

Damn - that Borat is sure quick on the draw!

Also - when you put it all back together, make sure you use real shear pins and NOT just any bolt that fits.  The shear pins look a lot like regular bolts but are designed to be weak enough to break (shear) when you hit an obstruction, whereas a regular bolt may not.  It'd be good to keep a few of these on hand - you will need em sooner or later.  Get em on Ebay.