A few weeks ago I got the bright idea to straighten out the auger on the snowthrower that came with my freshly acquired Sears Suburban 12 as it appeared that the PO had picked up some things that he shouldn't have, thus twisting up the auger pretty badly. Well, one thing led to another and it turned into a full restoration of the blower. I've got plenty of pics for you guys starting with before and after shots of the auger... I couldn't get it perfect as it's just too far gone but I think it oughta be good enough to get the job done.
Next I discovered that where the lift mechanism attaches to the housing there was some denting and cracking going on, the PO had welded the pivot pins into the lift mechanism, why I'm not sure but it was a chore to remove. As you'll see he had welded a lot of things onto the housing, also not entirely sure why. It was basically all stainless that was boogered onto the housing so that had to go. Next was welding up the cracking and holes, adding reinforcement plates to where the lift attaches and then re-welding the mounts.
Then it was time to fix up some of the other parts, the bent and cracked chain guard, the chute, skid shoes, etc.
(I guess I forgot to grab the "after" pics of the chute, I'll have to get some a little later)
In the second picture of the housing you can see a couple small pieces of square stock and some washers welded onto the top of the housing. Those I'm guessing were to function as a support for the chain drive end of the gearbox, it would appear that at some point he had managed to stop the auger so abruptly that it bent the mount for the gearbox (probably at the same time as the auger got bent). Needless to say that had to be removed and a better solution found...
Here you can see how much leverage is on the mount in factory form:
Here's my solution; secure, simple, cheap, easy and removable if I need to take the gearbox off:
As I was sandblasting everything I kept running across a couple of things that surprised me and I was curious if anyone else has ever seen this...?
Mill scale:
Weld slag:
I thought that would've all been cleaned off at the factory and that perhaps what I was finding it on were parts the PO had rebuilt but I saw in way too many places for that to be the case so it must have been from the factory...a bit of surprise for me.
A few more gratuitous "before" pics:
Here's everything finally all prepped for paint:
Here's my "******* engineering" paint booth, after removing the plastic that hung around it:
Here it is, finally mostly assembled:
It's not totally done yet, I need to get a new auger drive chain (it appears the PO cut an entire link out of it to tension it again after the gearbox mount bent and now that it's straight again the chain no longer reaches). I also need a couple of small bolts that I forgot to grab from the hardware store, then I can finish it up completely but I have enough done that I figured I'd post up the progress.
P.S. Take it easy on me guys, this is my first ever attempt at actually fully restoring something
Thanks for looking!
Next I discovered that where the lift mechanism attaches to the housing there was some denting and cracking going on, the PO had welded the pivot pins into the lift mechanism, why I'm not sure but it was a chore to remove. As you'll see he had welded a lot of things onto the housing, also not entirely sure why. It was basically all stainless that was boogered onto the housing so that had to go. Next was welding up the cracking and holes, adding reinforcement plates to where the lift attaches and then re-welding the mounts.
Then it was time to fix up some of the other parts, the bent and cracked chain guard, the chute, skid shoes, etc.
(I guess I forgot to grab the "after" pics of the chute, I'll have to get some a little later)
In the second picture of the housing you can see a couple small pieces of square stock and some washers welded onto the top of the housing. Those I'm guessing were to function as a support for the chain drive end of the gearbox, it would appear that at some point he had managed to stop the auger so abruptly that it bent the mount for the gearbox (probably at the same time as the auger got bent). Needless to say that had to be removed and a better solution found...
Here you can see how much leverage is on the mount in factory form:
Here's my solution; secure, simple, cheap, easy and removable if I need to take the gearbox off:
As I was sandblasting everything I kept running across a couple of things that surprised me and I was curious if anyone else has ever seen this...?
Mill scale:
Weld slag:
I thought that would've all been cleaned off at the factory and that perhaps what I was finding it on were parts the PO had rebuilt but I saw in way too many places for that to be the case so it must have been from the factory...a bit of surprise for me.
A few more gratuitous "before" pics:
Here's everything finally all prepped for paint:
Here's my "******* engineering" paint booth, after removing the plastic that hung around it:
Here it is, finally mostly assembled:
It's not totally done yet, I need to get a new auger drive chain (it appears the PO cut an entire link out of it to tension it again after the gearbox mount bent and now that it's straight again the chain no longer reaches). I also need a couple of small bolts that I forgot to grab from the hardware store, then I can finish it up completely but I have enough done that I figured I'd post up the progress.
P.S. Take it easy on me guys, this is my first ever attempt at actually fully restoring something
Thanks for looking!