Snowblower broke! Auger cable loose? help please?
so while i was snowblowing i accidently went over a newspaper, the blower sputtered for 2 seconds then got jammed and immediatley stopped. so i unjammed it and checked the shear pins. all the bolts still had the pins in them correctly and the auger didnt spin freely so i figure that isnt the problem. i went to start the blower and it starts fine but when i go to "blow" the snow it just pushes the snow and the auger fails to rotate. upon later evaluation i found the cable for the auger to go was very loose, so i moved the little pulley system on the blower up to make it a little more tight, but that still wasnt enough to get it really tight. so basically my question is what is wrong? why is the cable all of a sudden too loose to tighten? and how can i fix this? it is a brandnew craftsmen blower if that helps. thanks so much.
There is nothing JAMMED in the auger anymore, when i say it doesnt spin freely i meant more that it doesnt spin with ease, like if the pins were broken...
If I remember correctly from when I worked on mine… pushing the lever to engage the auger pushes a pulley into the belt to put tension on the belt. In simplistic terms one end of the belt is on the driveshaft the other end on the auger. When this pulley isn’t pushing on the belt there isn’t enough tension to transfer power from the driveshaft to the auger. When you push the lever to engage the auger however there is, this is why you sometimes hear a quick squack when engaging the auger.
Since you say the cable to the auger is loose I would bet you broke the belt. If that’s not it you’ll be able to see whatever in the engagement system (described above) was damaged.
Finally, if the worm gear (in the box between the auger blades) was stripped out you wouldn’t get any power to the auger but that doesn’t sound like the case. I hope that helps.
You say the auger does NOT spin freely so could be something else is jammed?
Pull the belt side cover off, (usually 5/6 screws). Check the belt for burn marks or complete failure, (broken), and the area around it for damage.