551 freshen up

[JohnWR]

Hello everyone first post in this forum, i was directed by Tim. I'm starting to get ready for winter duty as we already had a foot of snow already fall this year. I picked this 551 this from ray's a few weeks ago. When i used it in a pinch in the snow storm before going through it i new the main gear box was gonna need work. I tore into it this morning i noticed that the input and output shafts have in and out play was was wondering if this was normal? I installed new bearing and seals into the housing today just don't want to seal it back up yet and the cub grease is expensive.

Thanks everyone.

[olds45512]

Glad to see you joined. How much movement do the shafts have?

[JohnWR]

Glad to see you joined. How much movement do the shafts have?

Probably an 1/8" or less forward in back, I'm not seeing any wear on any of the splines of the shafts so they can't be that bad. I know the 450/451 boxes used a different setup then these, I figured cub would have used thrust washed to adjust play but according to the parts diagram there's nothing. The only thing negative i've noticed was the left side idler pulley and drive pulley where coming into contact with each other every once and awhile.

[Yettrbomb]

Welcome! Was the play with the old bearings or the new ones? I’d think some is probably normal if there isn’t any snap rings or thrust washers. I’d say as long as the shafts are bottoming out on the inner bearing race and not the case, I’d think you should be good to go. As far as the pulleys coming into contact, is the belt “tight and right”?

[JohnWR]

I don’t know on the belt it came with it but will be replaced. The play is with old and new bearings. I didn’t find any wear on anything in the box but the bearing were noisy and I had already pre ordered bearings. The grease was low but was still clean and had no metal flakes or shaving in it. The bearings just sandwich the 2 shafts as per cubs parts break down no shims or clips. I did get the idler pulleys just to be safe Incase someone changed them and they are wrong.

Thanks John.

[J-Mech]

Hello John! Welcome to ECC!

Yettrbomb is also going through a gearbox for his blower. I just wrote up a bunch of advice for him in another thread, but I'm going to copy it here, and add some things to it. Sorry I was busy today and didn't have time to post up this info, but I hope you read it before putting the gearbox back together. I see a pretty big mistake as it sits now.....
Bear with me, this is going to be pretty long....


Advice specific to you:

As far as what I see now, is the new bearings are sealed. You need to remove them, and remove the black seal on the bearing. If you leave it on, they won't get any lube from the grease in the gearbox. The bearings should be open. Now, on the bearings that are on the input and output side of the box (pulley and impeller, respectively) you can leave the outer seal on if you like, but remove the one that faces the lube. It will just add a seal to the seal the is outside of the bearing. Hope that makes sense.

On the topic of shaft movement, I'm sure it's fine. Below you will see me suggest to leave the cork gasket in the box and use RTV to seal up the box. If you don't use the gasket, I'm betting the shafts will be a bit tighter. Those cork gaskets are junk.

If you took the impeller out, have it balanced. Makes a big difference on gearbox and bearing life, and vibration.


Here's the copied advice from the other thread:

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. (And it's the same thing CCC sells, maybe better.)

***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 not wear out the splines as fast. Personally, I wish I'd put a grease zerk on mine the last time it was apart.

Buy a spare belt.


Hope you read this before assembly! Again, welcome to the forum John!

[JohnWR]

Thanks Jonathan, That's why i came i just needed advice. I was surprised when the bearings came in from cub and were sealed on both sides but when i opened the gear box up the originals are the same way. Removing the seal on that side wouldn't hurt anything and i may do this tomorrow. These boxes also don't call for a cork gasket just RTV. I haven't pulled the fan all the way out i got very lucky and was able to remove the gear box out the back without incident. Im going to finish with this gear box and then start gathering parts to pull the fan and spiral gear box out and service that one.

[JohnWR]

So i took your advice and removed the one side bearing seals before putting the box back together today. I did use the cub grease as i already had ordered 2 tubes up it so so no big deal there for me. I also installed 2 new idler pulleys and a new belt. Now i noticed that the left side idler and main pull will come into contact with each other with the blower all the way down. With the blower all the way down it sits weird the front raises about half and inch. i read the manual but cant figure out how to level the blower.

[J-Mech]

John,
Hey, been studying your problem for a while now. Did some research, and you aren't the first person to complain about this, however, you may be the first to find a solution..... as everything I read, comes back with no resolve. So, here's what I see, and what I suggest.

One of the things I notice are your rear tractor tires. They look both quite worn, and a bit smaller than they should be. I'm willing to bet they are Duro tires, which run smaller in size than basically any other tire does. That said.... it will cause the blower not to lay flat.

Second thing I notice is that not only do you have an issue with the pulley, (I'd like to see a better picture of that by the way) but when the blower is all the way down, the chute is contacting the grille nose. Not good either.

Here's some things I suggest:

1.) Don't let the blower down until it tips back like that. Just let it down enough to contact the pavement. While that doesn't actually fix a darn thing, it will get you by until you come to a resolution. (Hopefully from the advice below.)

2.) Check out all the lifting linkages, bolts and spacers on the lift mechanism of the blower itself. Something may be bent or loose. While you are at it, make sure that are no broken welds on the framework anywhere.

3.) This is the actual answer I believe....
There are another set of holes on the blower frame where the lower "control arm" for lifting attaches. (See pic) I suggest moving the control arm to a lower hole. This should do two things: Rock the blower forward more, and while doing that, move the main driven pulley further from the idler. That is what I would do if you don't see any loose hardware or broken/bent lift components. Oh, and short of buying taller rear tires.... which you may want to consider anyway.


551.jpg

[JohnWR]

Thanks, I'll pull it back off might take a few day's with work and suck and coming home in the dark now. I didn't even notice those lower holes and i see what you mean about moving it down and it hopefully pulling the back of the blower up. The rear tires are older Carlisle super lugs i will be pulling them off this week and swapping them for turf tires and chains. I just need to take them to work and swap them on the tire machine. The pulley contact happens when the blower is sitting like that when i set the lower level with the lift there is more then ample clearance around anything. I really appreciate the help and will try your suggestions out this week as time allows.

Thanks John.

[sir_lancealot]

I would like to add....If you need a copy of the operator's manual, I found it and put it in the tech section on this site. Still a work in progress, so if you need something, let us know and we will do our best to get it uploaded. Link to snow blower manuals

[JohnWR]

Since i was of today i started messing with the blower, If i move that arm down then belt alignment comes way off so i put that back how cub wanted it. I did have to fix the loft rod as someone drilled the hole to 3/4" so i welded it up and made it 1/2" again. I'm basically just writing this condition off as a quirk as this blower is meant to fit the GT's and supers without any additional parts. I did take some pictures of the narrow gap with the blower all the way down.

[J-Mech]

So did switching the mounting holes make it go the opposite direction? Or make it worse the same way it already was? Something has to be off..... it shouldn't be like it is. Maybe you got one made of a Friday at the end of the day, or a Monday, lol.

Does it throw belts?

All in all, your machines look good John!

[JohnWR]

Thanks im trying to keep these old girls running and working as they should be.

[JohnWR]

So i've been thinking about it all week and i decided to play with it some more today the manual is very vague on adjusting the lift rod. So today i was just playing around and really lengthened the road out and was able to get it sitting almost level and it lifts the bower almost 6" now.

[J-Mech]

I apologize John. I just assumed you had adjusted the lift rod. Glad you figured it out!

[JohnWR]

Honesty I thought it was adjusted enough myself. I would have figured it needed to be longer for a super not a gt. We are always learning I guess lol.