54 " Blower fan observation?

[Dale1995]

On Saturday afternoon after snow blowing, I was cleaning and checking over my 54" front mount snow blower. I seem to have noticed that there is a lot of play in the blower fan, I am able to rotate the fan about 1/2 " in either direction before the excess slop is taken up. I had a 47" blower before and had many more hours on it, and there was never any amount of excessive play in the 47" blower. The only difference between the two is that the 54" now has a plastic blower fan and the 47 has the standard metal one. :confused2: I am wondering if any one else has had any problems with these plastic blower fans. I am hearing that John Deere is replacing the plastic fan with a metal one. I don't know how true that is, I have a call into my dealer and will know more tomorrow. But I am sure that my plastic fan will not last for long! The price for a plastic one is about $79 and a metal one is $ 245 I have include a picture of the two of them and as you see they are even coupled together a little differently. I will be interested to hear of your experience with the durability of this fan. I will keep you posted as to what I find out

John Deere - Parts Catalog
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Close Window Catalog: 1926 | Grid: 2D10 | Section: 62 | Page: 10 Catalog Name: 47-Inch 2-Stage Snow Blower Page Name: BLOWER AND GEAR DRIVE Direction of Travel:

John Deere - Parts Catalog
Printer Friendly Page

Close Window Catalog: 1926 | Grid: 2B12 | Section: 61 | Page: 8 Catalog Name: 47-Inch 2-Stage Snow Blower Page Name: BLOWER AND GEAR DRIVE Direction of Travel:

 

[beenthere]

Both shown were 47-inch. Thought you might post the 54" for comparison.

Can you identify where the slop is coming from? At the shear pin? or in the gear box? or in the driving chain/sprocket on the shaft driving the gear box?

 

[Dale1995]

these are the parts for both the 47 and the 54, john deere hasn't got things labeled right in the parts books. The Plastic one is on my machine now, the metal one is what used to be on the style. I believe that the slop is coming from the plastic fan. There is a flat piece of metal with a hex nut opening that slides over the front of the fan nut. I think the plastic is wearing on that nut and causing the slop I am getting. There seems to be no issues with the gear box.

 

[rambler]

Wow. Plastic snow blower.

The world really is falling apart.

--->Paul

 

[chipsndust]

I can, and have been able to since new, move the metal impeller on my 47" blower as you describe.

I just always thought there was that much play in the drive train.

 

[turbo36]

I noticed that there was more play for the plastic impeller on my 54" as compared to the steel on my 47". Two seasons now with no problems.

 

[Kamik]

I bought the 54" snow blower in 2009 and had no trouble with the plastic impeller until Friday morning, when, as I was clearing 13" of snow/sleet mixture, inadvertently caused the snow blower to attempt ingestion of a heavy duty vinyl rain diverter sticking out into the driveway. Of course, the blower stopped blowing snow. Replacing the right-side auger shear bolt regained input feed, but the blower still would not blow snow. Hmm . . . impeller sheer bolt (item #4 in the first drawing above) was not broken but the plastic impeller would spin (free-wheel) on shaft when the unit was stopped and I moved the blade by hand.

Since the impeller sheer bolt didn't break I'm guessing one of the keys (see item #11 keyways) failed. And since replacement of such an item according to my better half is best done by a fully resourced and skilled mechanic, I took the snow blower into the dealership for repair. The details of the repair will be interesting and I'll post them when I receive them.

It was nice to be able to fall back to the front-end loader and use it to finish the job.

K

 

[jgayman]

On Saturday afternoon after snow blowing, I was cleaning and checking over my 54" front mount snow blower. I seem to have noticed that there is a lot of play in the blower fan, I am able to rotate the fan about 1/2 " in either direction before the excess slop is taken up.

I had a chance to check my 54" blower this afternoon and my impeller has the same 1/2" of free travel in each direction. My blower is brand new this year with only about 2 hours of use on it - no broken sheer bolts yet. I cleaned a few gravel driveways and didn't really detect much gravel being picked up. I know with my old walk-behind it would occasionally get a gulp of stones that sounded like a rock crusher. Anyway, despite not hearing much gravel going through the new blower, the bottom of my impeller chamber already has some nasty gouges in it. It looks like 5 years of wear in only two hours. :thumbdown:

 

[Mercmaniac]

jgayman, I have a 47" blower on my JD 445 that I have been running for around 16 yrs. That blower has seen a lot of snow over the years and the impeller housing sure shows the use!! I have about 500' of gravel driveway. About 3 yrs ago, an open slit developed in the chamber. I welded a "patch" on the outside. When I bought my 2520 with 54" blower in 2011 I wanted to come up with something to combat this wear. I had 14 gauge stainless steel rolled to fit snug into the chamber and fastened it with 10-32 ss truss head screws and ss nylon locknuts. I figure periodically I will have to replace the screws and after a few years replace the ss liner. I think it was around $30 to have liner made. I also installed one in my old 47". Another thing I did was remove the cutting edges on both blowers. I replaced them with a length of 1 1/4" schedule 40 steel pipe. The pipe has 3 tabs welded to it. A tab at each end with 2 holes and a tab in the center with 3 holes. It bolts right up using the bolts from the cutting edge. I only used the blowers a couple of times last season and 3 times this winter so far but I really love them pipes!! Here is a pic of the liner. Eric

 

[jgayman]

Wow... that is a great idea! I like the idea of the replacable impeller liner. Do you have a photo of the pipes that you installed in place of the cutting edge? Do you find that it allows you to run the blower shoes down closer to the gravel? The one change I am actively working on is increasing the size of the shoe pads. Unless the ground is frozen they seem to really dig in. I saw a post from another owner who had much better results once they increased the skid pads to around 4x6".