Snow Equipment Owning/Operating snow blower help

[Hal Bolton]

Running a Kubota B7800 with a B2782 63" front mounted snowblower. Have run it for 5 winters on a 800' gravel driveway. It has worked very well but the "tunnel" that the impeller rotates in is now worn completely through in places. I am concerned that soon the "tunnel" will be completely shot and the snow will not forced out the chute.
Has anyone else faced this problem and if so is there a fix?
Thanks.

 

[smfcpacfp]

I have the same blower and it does show some wear also. The manual for the blower has a part called the housing. It has no part #, and includes all of the big parts on the blower.

I suppose it could be fabicated by you, but what a hassle. I am anxious to hear what others have to say.

 

[Elevation 8200]

I have a Honda 1132 track drive that I used for 15 years and developed
holes in the housing. I wrapped the impeller housing with the thickest
sheet metal and welded it in place. I only use it for around the house &
decks. We had a 4 footer this October and it still worked fine. Nice to have
a blower on the tractor like in 2003 when we got 9 feet in 3 days. You
could try this idea, best to stay out of the gravel.

 

[Ductape]

You are the first person i've heard of wearing through the impeller housing........... congratulations ! You must blow a fair amount of gravel through your blower. First piece of advice would be to lower the skid shoes on the blower, at least until all the gravel is frozen. Definitely anything can be fixed. A good steel fab shop should be able to cut out the holey area and roll a new piece of steel to weld in there. Unfortunately, it may be cheaper to buy a new housing and swap over all the parts onto the new one. Perhaps for a temporary fix, a thin piece of steel could be rolled and welded to the inside of the impeller housing? Or..... maybe a sheet of heavy plastic (poly, nylon, etc.) could be cut to fit inside the housing and attached with small counter sunk screws? Just throwing out ideas.

 

[Hal Bolton]

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm hopeful that I can make it through this winter before I'm forced to do something. I am in the process of putting a PVC pipe on the bottom edge of the blower (idea picked up on this net).

 

[PILOON]

Gravel often causes that sort of wear, so much so that some fabricators (Puma for one) actually offer lining kits to redo the tunnel.
Any good welding shop can reline that for you by curving a new liner if they have a roller.

 

[MichaelE]

As Ductape mentioned, heavy plastic is an excellent temporary fix. Years back I lined the housing of a well used Erskine blower with a semi trailer mud flap, the hard plastic type, available at any auto parts store. Back then it was about $20. This material is easy to trim and form. I anchored it in place with small machine screws and nuts. It lasted all the time I owned it and as far as I know, is still in service. I also do this same mod to the chutes of all the blowers I've had, for a lot less problems with clogging when the snow is wet

 

[Nick Danger]

Running a Kubota B7800 with a B2782 63" front mounted snowblower. Have run it for 5 winters on a 800' gravel driveway. It has worked very well but the "tunnel" that the impeller rotates in is now worn completely through in places. I am concerned that soon the "tunnel" will be completely shot and the snow will not forced out the chute.
Has anyone else faced this problem and if so is there a fix?
Thanks.

Hal, keep the gravel on the driveway...