47" snowblower question

[mikefamig]

I recently restored a 47" John Deere snowblower and have a question on assembling the chute to the housing. The chute fits very loosely over the cabinet and I'm wondering if there wasn't a spacer of some sort used between the two parts. I'm thinking about gluing a thin teflon shim stock around the inside diameter of the chute and on the top deck of the housing where the chute rubs against the housing. Otherwise the paint will rub off and it'll all rust up in the first season.

So can anyone tell me if this is normal? Did JD really design it with metal rubbing on metal?

Thanks, Mike.

 

[Henri88]

I don't know how old is your blower, but I suspect they have pretty much the same design as the more recent one. If this is the case, yes they rub metal on metal. No spacers. The manual ask that you grease them regularly. I use a lithium grease in spray. Here's the only picture I could find of my blower showing the chute and one when it arrive in a crate. Hope this help. If you click on the pic it should oversize it. ps. This pics was taken at the end of the season before I wash it and put it away for the summer.



Henri

 

[mikefamig]

Henri:

Thanks and yes that does help. Now that I know that JD built it that way I can stop looking for the missing parts. I'm going to see if I can buy some ptfe sheet material and use it as shim stock in addition to some grease.

Mike.

 

[Henri88]

Would be interesting to see some pictures of your modification. Good luck!

Henri

 

[mikefamig]

Would be interesting to see some pictures of your modification. Good luck!

Henri

OK I finally took the time to make a little modification to the chute on my 47" blower. It's no big deal but I hope that it prevents the top deck of the snowblower body from rusting. Maybe overkill but after all the work of sandblasting and painting I want to keep it nice.

I didn't like that I've seen photos of old blowers that rusted on the top deck around the chute so I added some UHMW poly bushings that I hope will help keep the machine looking nice for a bit longer. This material was as hard to cut as a mild steel and self lubricates as it wears. The chute sits on three raised little bumps in the blower body and what I did was to add polypropylene shims that give the chute a larger surface to glide on and hopefully keep it from contacting the deck surface when spinning. The shims are 3/16" thick which is thick enough that the chute rides on them just a little above the bumps in the blower body. The elongated hole in the bushing fits over the bump in the body and is filled with grease before assembling.

Here are a couple of pics: