Bent Snowthrower Blade

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Jul 22, 2005
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I have no idea when and how that happened. Few days ago, it was clogging badly but I attributed it to the snow with lot of moisture content. Today I was looking more closely and this is what I see. I tried to unbend in place with large plier but it is not budging at all. I do not have work bench or vice or anvil etc. Even if I were to purchase a new blade, how am I going to replace this without major surgery?

Doesn't blade rotates "forward"? If so, how does it bent like that even if it clogs with ice? All the shear pins are intact.


Bent_Snowthrower_Blade.jpg
 
Do you have an adjustable wrench and a piece of pipe?
Just tried that (big crescent wrench and a socket extension through the hole in the crescent wrench to twist the blade) but does not budge at all
 
You need a bigger bar! If it bent, It'll bend back. It's not that thick to not bend back.
Maybe you need to position the blower housing against a block wall and use more leverage aka bigger bar.
Don't use a small crescent wrench. Use a 12" or larger, if you don't have one that size even a pipe wrench will work.
 
rotate the auger so the bent part is facing out the front , no reason why a big pipe wrench won't straighten that out.
i have done that with large vice grips, had friend hold the blower and auger steady went back in place fairly easy.
 
Place the pipe wrench jaws perpendicular to the blade and around the middle of the blade. At least that looks where it is bent. It doesn't have to be tight to straighten it out that way. If you position just right you should be able to stand on it. A pipe for extra leverage will help tremendously.
 
To rotate the auger, don't have to rotate the impeller? That is quite hard to rotate. It can not be fighting against the engine compression because the auger lever is NOT pulled in. I do have slack in the cable. I was trying to move the impeller in the correct direction. I thought it would be easy to rotate by hand

I actually got worried that may be everything is jammed. So I put the spark plug boot and key back in and started the engine and used the auger lever to verify that it rotates under engine power and no abnormal noises are heard when auger is engaged. I managed to stop it so the bent part is now facing out the front. I will get a block of wood and block and try with a bigger "Metric Crescent Wrench" that found in my stash. YES, Irwin actually did have such a thing! Will try that approach over the weekend.

Every week, something is going wrong :-( Last it was Garage Door Opener; before that smoke detectors ...
 
Happened to my Toro last year when i hit something in the snow when blowing.you could pull the shear pin so the auger rotates freely. Wedge a pipe or use a cresent wrench to bend it back. Shouldn't be too hard to make it serviceable.
 
Probably a chunk of ice got jammed in there. Can't bend it back, get bigger tools and some help.
 
Be careful cranking on it while it’s in the machine. You could break something else.

I’m surprised the sheer pin didn’t go first. That’s it’s job.
 
I was worried if the pin which connects the auger pully to the gearbox was gone but realized that if auger was moving, then impeller has to be because impeller is the one which powers the auger. Also realized that it should be very hard to rotate the auger or impeller by hand because it has brake when the lever is not pulled in.

From Home Depot, purchased a big 24" pipe wrench and made room around the blower and was then able to persuade blade to unbent
1645393568857.png


Increased the money wasted on the tools by $33 but who is counting?
1645393697371.png
 
It could use a little more bending, but close enough for me from here.
 
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Do you guys remember my other topic?


I suspect this is what I must have hit. I really need to call the gas company and have them push it down.
 
You may have issues with stuff rusted in place. Do you remove stuff and lube it yearly such as the wheels? From your pics I can see rusting underneath. Is that a craftsman or MTD snowblower?
 
In my previous reply I said "impeller is the one which powers the auger". Isn't that wrong? The auger is directly powered from the take off pulley. As long as the belt is turning the pulley, the auger gearbox is turning and as long as the sheer pins are in, the augers would be spinning. Impeller sits on the pulley shaft going to the gearbox and has either sheer pins (or hollow pins) and that makes it rotate with the shaft.

May be I am still wrong? I just watched the youtube video below. I do not see what locks the pulley, shaft and impeller together. The video showed impeller spinning freely on the shaft when the pulley was removed. I see that pulley hub is the one which locks pulley and shaft together but how is the impeller locked to that assembly?

 
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You are right, the augers are driven via the gearbox that is driven by the shaft on the pulley. The impeller is just held onto that shaft with a roll pin.

Either way, you are lucky with a hit like that to still have functioning augers. I'm surprised the shear pins didn't break, as they are supposed to be sacrificial to save the gearbox. I've seen auger gearboxes with stripped out gears that had much less bend to the auger.
 
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