Snowblower Inland SA-48 Snowblower - broken driveshaft

[jmonetti]

Hi all,

I've lurked these forums for years, but today I'm in need of some direct advice.

I have an Inland SA-48 two stage rear-mounted snowblower that I use with my Bolens/Iseki G-174 (great little machine! I prefer it over my Kubota BX2200!). The blower has been trouble-free for many seasons until the driveshaft gave up the ghost today - sheared in two, pretty much a clean break.

Given the overall high quality of this unit, I want to keep it in service. I'd love to find a new/replacement shaft, but after a couple hours on the interwebs, it looks like I'll need to have a new one machined.

I found ZERO documentation on any Inland units whatsoever. No manuals, very few mentions outside these forums, and not even the photocopied manuals you usually see peddled on eBay.

I know Inland was acquired by Buhler, but there's no remnant of the brand on their site either.

Before I go the machine shop route, can anyone point to a source for Inland parts, manuals, service, etc? I am in NJ (>2.5ft of snow in 5 days in, yes, New Jersey), but location not important if I can find the part or even just some basic documentation that I could have shipped.

Thanks in advance
JM

 

[RoyJackson]

Are you referring to the PTO shaft? I mean the one from the Tractor PTO to the snowblower.
If so, they're available at Tractor Supply and may other places. You may have to cut it to length though.

 

[jmonetti]

Nope, this is the shaft with a fixed end yoke and a bearing mount (on the outside of the body of the blower box). It attaches to the PTO shaft with a slip spline.

The shaft that broke is a component of the snowblower's drive system (shaft runs through the back of the snowblower box where it engages the impeller, and then to the transfer case where it runs the augers).

In any case, I think i am SOL on a replacement part...to the machinists I go.

 

[600rider]

that sounds alot like my ford 715a snowblower made by ber-vac later rad technologies. if you could post some pics it would help. I broke mine a couple of years ago (it measures about 1.125 dia. then it is turnned down to go into the gearbox or transfer case as you say to about 1"dia.) I found one at my local Kubota dealer he had ordered it for a guy and when it came in it was the wrong one so the guy left it with the dealer. it was if I remember correctly $150 but I told the dealer that I would take it off his hands for $100, and he agreed. well you guessed it.....wrong one for mine too but I took it to a friend and he turnned it down for me and it worked perfectly. as it turnned out the dealer said he had two of them. I dont know if he still has the other one but If you get me pics and dimennsions I would be willing to check with him for you.

 

[jmonetti]

May already?!? Where did the time go?!

Thanks for the replies, gents. I ended up going to an excellent local machine shop to have a new driveshaft fabricated. I was lucky, in that the shaft was just on the cusp of the "cutoff" size for them - for liability reasons, they won't make any shafts over a certain size (or for certain uses) in case the thing comes to pieces and kills someone.

In any event, for $125 I had a new shaft, and was able to put the snowblower back together in less than 2 hrs--everything worked perfectly.

Since the Inland is a great unit, no longer made, and a comparable replacement would probably run me >$3k, this was a great solution.

Thanks again guys for the input-

JM