450 Freshen Up

[Yettrbomb]

Picked this up last summer, with plans to go through it and freshen it up. All in all, it was pretty solid to start with. The gearbox on the back looked leaky so I wanted to get that taken care of first. There wasn’t much grease left in it! New seals and bearings ordered through a local auto parts store. However, found that someone has changed the gears inside to fit a Cyclops tractor with the larger PTO. The rest is soaking in Kroil for disassembly hopefully later this week. Plus I need to find somewhere to put the stuff I have stored on it.

[J-Mech]

I imagine someone changed the whole gear box. More likely.

You should clean that all up, fix it and put it back together. Then offer to trade someone for a whole box, maybe even plus the cost of anything you put in it, since your box will be rebuilt. It will be easier to find someone willing to trade gear boxes, than gears.

[Yettrbomb]

Yup! It’s apart, might as well fix it right!

[olds45512]

Can't you just grind a couple teeth off the gears you have? It would be a West Virginia gear box them.

[Yettrbomb]

[Yettrbomb]

Question for everyone! Has anyone seen a gearbox like this for a 450 blower?? I can’t find this in a parts diagram. They all have just a drive and driven gear. Thanks!

[J-Mech]

No. That would have to be off a different model. Think about it Rich..... the gears change direction of rotation. A chain and sprocket set up won't. The blower would run backwards.

It's either from a 351, or a blower from a 3K machine that is shaft drive. I'd have to go check the parts books.

[Yettrbomb]

Duh! Why didn’t I think of that! Lol!

[Yettrbomb]

Ok, getting back into this thing now after the holiday and below freezing temps. I found a used 450 gearbox on EBay. Waiting for it to get here, I took the augers off and got the auger case split. Everything came apart easily, and I’ll take easy once in a while. Seals and bearings ordered for both boxes and the seals for the auger box. I figure I’ll keep the 451 case after it’s together, at least for a while. Maybe I’ll end up with a cyclops? The impeller is going to get balanced on Jon’s advice. I think I calculated it to spin around 1300 rpm. But that was fuzzy math with whiskey . I am going to anti seize the augers and shafts as well as the input splines, just in case it ever needs to come apart again. Pics, cause it happened!

[J-Mech]

Ok.... sorry I was out today. Had a project at home to work on, and been busy. Just had a shower, and I'm sitting down for the evening, lol.
Rich, this is going to be a long post, but bear with me. A lot of advice to give on this one....


On your math:

I went out and measured the drive pulley on the blower, because I couldn't remember how big it was. The belt fits down in it pretty far, so it looks like about a 3.5" pulley by belt depth.
So:
PTO= 4.5"
Drive pulley= 6.5"
Drive gear= 15T
Driven gear= 28T

That give you *about* 927 RPM at the impeller at 3600 engine RPM. I suggest balancing it for 1000-1200 RPM, just so it's good.


Advice:

While you have the impeller out, check all the welds on it over really good. They do break. Make sure the impeller overall is in good shape and not bent. Straighten it up if it is. Make sure to do all this before balancing.

Take a flap disk on a grinder and take the paint off the impeller fins. The "cup" area that throws the snow. Do the same to the inside of the impeller housing, only on the round portion, where the snow rides. It's counter intuitive, I understand, but you will thank me later. It's easy to do while the impeller is out, and it makes a world of difference on how well it will feed snow through it. Snow is just like dirt, and a blower is just like a moldboard plow. Dirt sticks to a rusty plow, but a nice scoured plow slides right through the soil. A nice shiny polished bare metal surface will glide snow across it like a hot knife through butter. Believe me on this one. At the end of the season, coat it with used oil, or even WD40. WD doesn't last as long, but if you use it every year, it might make it. Used oil is best.

Don't bother with the quark gaskets for the gearbox. Just RTV the case halves. It works fine.

Don't bother with the lube for the gearboxes that CCC sells. Either mix up a 50/50 mix of Valvoline wheel bearing grease (red) and synthetic Valvoline 75/90 gear oil. (Mixed to the consistency of runny pudding.) or buy a tube of John Deere corn head grease for $4 at Deere. It's worth the $4.

I would seriously consider replacing the aluminum auger gear with the brass one while it's apart. Not fun when you are ass deep in snow and that aluminum gear gives it up.
***This one's important!*** Make sure you put soft grade 3 bolts in the augers. They are sheer pins. Those augers are still available, but not cheep. And they look different now, so you want a pair if you have to buy them after you tear up the tube from putting too hard a bolt in. Or tear out that aluminum gear....

Mix wheel bearing grease with the anti-seize for the impeller splines. The grease will help it now wear them out as fast. Personally, I wish I'd put a grease zerk on mine the last time it was apart.

Buy a spare belt.


Ok.... that's all I can think of for now. Good luck, and holler if you need anything!

[Yettrbomb]

Thanks Jon! All really good advice there! I took the boxes apart at work, where most of my tools are. Dad had a check engine light in his truck and called me yesterday. Told him to stop since I was already there. He sees the boxes apart and says I should probably go through mine too. Let me know when you get these done, I’ll bring mine out too . His isn’t going to come apart as nice, I’m sure. His really beat the crap outta his. I’ll probably trade him housings and boxes. He’s done a lot for me, so a basically new/rebuilt piece should be good for him.

[Yettrbomb]

So, after a long wait, made some (slow) progress. Got my brass gear in the mail today. Assembled the main gear box with new seals and bearings. Jon, took your advice from the “other” snow blower freshen up and removed the seal on the inner side of the bearings. Checked over and re welded some of the impeller welds. It’s at the shop now getting balanced. Hoping to get it back Monday or Tuesday. Then I can reassemble the auger box and get this thing together! Sorry no pics. The wheel bearing grease/oil won’t get along with my phone...
A local hardware store is going out of business. I bought all the shear pins he had in stock. Among other things. 25% off, i figured what the heck.

[J-Mech]

Good deal Rich! Looking forward to some pics or video of you tossing snow in the air!

[Yettrbomb]

Good deal Rich! Looking forward to some pics or video of you tossing snow in the air!

After it’s together, I hope we get a blizzard! Lol

[Yettrbomb]

FINALLY! Finally, got this back together! I got the impeller back later than anticipated, but he didn’t charge me, so that’s a favor I owe, or a box of beer.
I was hoping to get it together over Christmas, but just had too much going on. So had to wait til last weekend, but it’s done! Now to finish the other stuff that’s in the way to get this thing out! Garage needs cleaned up BAD! But we’re making progress, albeit slowly.

[J-Mech]

Well let's see it Rich!!

[Yettrbomb]

Tomorrow! Had to fix an outside light. In the dark and rain!

[Yettrbomb]

Look close Jon! All the way in the back. The Harley is leaving hopefully this week! The Honda stays, it was my paps. In front of those 2 is the Cub. 4 years of not knowing where to put stuff so it ends up in the garage! Looking forward to being able to work in it!