ottcan

Same thing happened to my 2 year old ST27LE. I manged to get the right wheel off and I greased the axle. The left wheel however was rusted to the axle. I pulled out the wheel with the axle but after hammering for a couple of minutes I still couldn't get the wheel off. I might take to wheel and axle to machine shop with a press to see if they can dislodge the axle. Why can't Ariens grease the axles at the factory; is this a cost cutting measure?

The only break in procedure that you should follow is to change the oil after the first 2-5 hours of usage. I believe it also helps in the engine break in if you expose the engine to heavier work load during the first hours.

njbenz79 thank you for following up with Ariens; however, there appears to be a discrepancy between what you were told by the Ariens engineer and the parts manual. From this year’s Deluxe 27 parts manual (available at: http://apache.ariens.com/manuals/03882800A.pdf), the gear case assembly still shows the use of a short rake shaft just like in our model. However, the cute and auger assembly now shows a zerk fitting beside the shear bolts.

 

While at the Ariens dealer I also had a look at this year’s Deluxe 30 model which has the 305cc engine and a short rake shaft, yet it too has the zerk fittings beside the shear bolts. For some reason this year Ariens saw the need to put back the zerk fitting on all models with the short rake shaft.

 

Even if the parts manual is incorrect and this year’s Deluxe 27 now has the long rake shaft, why would Ariens forgo their previous “maintenance free” design on this year's model? More curious is why Ariens has decided to reduce the engine on the Deluxe 27 from 305cc to 249cc?

Perhaps I’m making too much of a deal about the missing zerks, but judging from what I can see, it appears to be on oversight on our model which has now been remedied on this year’s model.

I bought an Ariens ST27LE Model 921010 in December of 2008. While doing maintenance I noticed that the auger did not have grease Zerk fittings. I noticed that this year’s model (921012) now has auger grease Zerk fittings. I downloaded from Ariens website the parts manual for models 921010 and 921012. The auger assembly on the model 921012 showed 3 extra parts: 2 Zerk fittings (part #07061300) and 1 plug (part #03905800). The remaining parts were all the same.

 

I asked the dealer about this discrepancy between the two models and he was at a loss to give a reason. It appears that this year all the Ariens Sno-Thro models have auger Zerk fittings. I am worried that this was an oversight by Ariens on my model which was remedied on this year’s model. Can someone with more knowledge reassure me that this was design intent and there is no reason to worry about the auger getting rusted to the rake shaft?