# Simplicity 860DLX Drive repair experience



## wilfredjr (Jan 16, 2016)

I own this model, too, having inherited it a few years back from my Mom when her husband, a pretty handy guy known for keeping up his gear, died. It seemed mint, particularly the engine, and performed well for a year or two in heavy Northern Wisconsin winters over at my house, where the driveway is 1700 feet of up and down and around. 
Eventually, the friction disc began to slide toward the center of the drive plate, and I lost the use of most gears, but I stupidly continued to use it until all forward motion died and I had to run it back to the garage in reverse, chewing up the thrust collars, pin-loop and set collar against something black that holds the shift rod. Ugh.
I ordered those parts, readily available and reasonably priced from Parts Tree (highly recommended), and after much trial and error got it all back together and running, although shifting the forward gears was not very fluid. That year (2013-14) was a doozy for snow, and the repairs began to fail in short order.
Early on, I had fiddled with the cable adjuster turnbuckles on the 5 forward/1 reverse shift until they got so far to the end of the thread that I can't really change the shift throw without starting over, and I have no real base-line to work from. I just ran it in 4th and reverse, and the season passed.
Last season, the snow was less, but the failure came quickly. Against my wife's better judgement, I hauled the thing to town for an expensive, time-consuming repair at a well-regarded equipment dealer. We certainly could have bought a new blower in the medium range for what we paid to have the same failures reoccur. They had also replaced the friction disc, which had considerable wear on the rubber edge, and was said to be the cause of the urge to slip to the center of the drive disc. It worked so well that I had to replace the auger and drive belts when they immediately failed.
Well, it wasn't the friction disc. The darn thing ran once this year, in a mere 8" snowfall, and the gears immediately went to one. I got it back out to mess with last week and we're down to reverse. The loop pin and set collar were half chewed up when the pin came out of the housing again, and I ordered them once more.
The parts came today, and I wonder if anyone has any idea's on how to stop this nonsense from recurring. I want to keep my Mom's gift, but I'm ready to throw in the towel and buy a gear-on-gear drive, 250cc Brute (Briggs/Menards) before I go back to the dealer and spend the same money on a lost cause.

Thanks for listening to me vent.


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## toroused (Mar 1, 2015)

Wilfred, I'm afraid your friction disc and shaft appears absent without leave.....


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## Kiss4aFrog (Nov 3, 2013)

:welcome: to the forum wilfredjr


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## wilfredjr (Jan 16, 2016)

toroused said:


> Wilfred, I'm afraid your friction disc and shaft appears absent without leave.....


Ha! Forgot to include the gory details…

The friction disc edge has little loss, but there is some black deposit on the drive disc.
The set screw collar is really chewed, almost to the set screws
The old collar set screws seemed tight when I removed them, and were not re-ordered. I can't get them any tighter with my tiny Allen wrench.
The plastic thrust collars seem basically worthless as retainers
If I remember right, the ground-off pin-loop end was still held in the little rotating ball socket on the armature, indicating the friction disc slippage occurred beforehand.

Any speculation appreciated… Thanks


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## classiccat (Mar 1, 2014)

Welcome to the forum wilfred! 

You should start your own thread. Go into either the Simplicity or Repair subforum and click the "New Thread" button at the top.


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## wilfredjr (Jan 16, 2016)

*Simple mistake*



classiccat said:


> Welcome to the forum wilfred!
> 
> You should start your own thread. Go into either the Simplicity or Repair subforum and click the "New Thread" button at the top.


Thanks for the tip. I didn't mean to intrude.
I was just amazed to find an existing one for my very model and thought there would be a ready audience.


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## wilfredjr (Jan 16, 2016)

I really want to keep this beast, having inherited it a few years back from my Mom when her husband, a pretty handy guy known for keeping up his gear, died. It seemed mint, particularly the engine, and performed well for a year or two in heavy Northern Wisconsin winters over at my house, where the driveway is 1700 feet of up and down and around. 
Eventually, the friction disc began to slide toward the center of the drive plate, and I lost the use of most "gears", but I stupidly continued to use it until all forward motion died and I had to run it back to the garage in reverse, chewing up the thrust collars, pin-loop and set collar against the black armature that holds the shift rod. Ugh.
I ordered those parts, readily available and reasonably priced from Parts Tree (highly recommended), and after much trial and error got it all back together and running, although shifting the forward gears was not very fluid. That year (2013-14) was a doozy for snow, and the repairs began to fail in short order.
Early on, I had fiddled with the cable adjuster turnbuckles on the 5 forward/1 reverse shift until they got so far to the end of the thread that I can't really change the shift throw without starting over, and I have no real base-line to work from. I just ran it in 4th and reverse, and the season passed.
Last season, the snow was less, but the failure came quickly. Against my wife's better judgement, I hauled the thing to town for an expensive, time-consuming repair at a well-regarded equipment dealer. We certainly could have bought a new blower in the medium range for what we paid to have the same failures reoccur. They had also replaced the friction disc, which had considerable wear on the rubber edge, and was said to be the cause of the urge to slip to the center of the drive disc. It worked so well that I had to replace the auger and drive belts when they immediately failed.
Well, it wasn't the friction disc. The darn thing ran once this year, in a mere 8" snowfall, and the gears immediately went to one. I got it back out to mess with last week and we're down to reverse. The loop pin and set collar were half chewed up when the pin came out of the housing again, and I ordered them once more.
The parts came Saturday, and I wonder if anyone has any idea's on how to stop this from recurring. I want to keep my Mom's gift, but I'm ready to throw in the towel and buy a gear-on-gear drive, 250cc Brute (Briggs/Menards) before I go back to the dealer and spend the same money on a lost cause. Thanks for listening to me vent.
Gory details:
The friction disc edge has little loss, but there is some black deposit on the drive disc.
The set screw collar is really chewed, almost to the set screws.
The old collar set screws seemed snug when I removed them, and were not re-ordered. A certain torque is mentioned on the Partstree order page: 
order page
But I haven't the tool for it. I can't get them any tighter with my tiny Allen wrench.
The plastic thrust collars seem basically worthless, and disintegrate fast.
If I remember right, the ground-off pin-loop end was still held in the little rotating ball socket on the armature, indicating the friction disc slippage occurred beforehand. So it must be the set screws going loose, right?

Any speculation appreciated… Thanks


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## wilfredjr (Jan 16, 2016)

Photo's appear here:
http://www.snowblowerforum.com/forum/simplicity-snowblowers/68473-simplicity-860-dlx-2.html
I was advised to start my own thread and can''t get the photos to reappear


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## nwcove (Mar 2, 2015)

i would start by replacing the parts that you know are fubar'd, and while its apart, clean things up, and apply a thin coat of white lithium grease to everywhere applicable. from the pics , lubrication has been neglected. jmo


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## classiccat (Mar 1, 2014)

wilfredjr said:


> Photo's appear here:
> http://www.snowblowerforum.com/forum/simplicity-snowblowers/68473-simplicity-860-dlx-2.html
> I was advised to start my own thread and can''t get the photos to reappear


here are the pics from the other thread wilfredjr. Really nice machine...and some great scenery! You'll get it sorted out...these things are tanks!


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## skutflut (Oct 16, 2015)

I would take a good look at bearings and bushings on the hex shaft and the drive plate. That friction rubber looks to be worn on an angle on the right side which might indicate that either the hex shaft or drive plate might not be not running true, which could cause the symptoms you mentioned about weak drive, then no drive. 

When you mentioned you friction wheel was moving toward the center of the plate, was the gear shift also moving, of just the friction wheel? The wheel position should be locked down by the shifter lever via the mechanism that moves the friction wheel side to side. If the friction wheel is moving by itself, something else has worn off, or broken off allowing the wheel to move independent of the shift forks and to float around where ever it wants. The disk should not have hit any other parts while in reverse either.

Nice part is that there's not that many things that can go wrong so it shouldn't take that long to figure it out. Make sure to check anything that pivots or turns for side slop while you are looking. 

Getting the parts, now that's a whole different subject. Hopefully there are easily available.


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## wilfredjr (Jan 16, 2016)

*Spacer Cadet*

The shifter is indeed not locking down while in gear, and the right edge of the new friction disc has been carved away dramatically. I checked out the right side bearing this morning, which moves fluidly and seems unharmed, so I went to the parts diagram online and began a review.

Simplicity 860DLX (1693652) - Simplicity 8HP 24 Snowthrower Traction Drive Group (985638) Diagram and Parts List | PartsTree.com
Your remark about side slop got me thinking again that the thing I have noticed in taking this apart and putting it back together about twenty times now is that the "spacer" (part 21) up against the 10 tooth sprocket (22) doesn't provide any horizontal space, instead sliding easily inside the set collar (19) when you reassemble the shaft, so that there is some question whether the set screws needs to press on the hex shaft or the spacer. If so mounted over the spacer, the shaft turns freely. I want to know if the set screws are supposed to grip the hex shaft, with the spacer rubbing against them, which seems suicidal for wear, or have a function gripping the spacer, which just seems plain wrong.
I have a dread both I and the technician have been doing this very wrong.
I hope you are merciful in your scorn.:blush:


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## skutflut (Oct 16, 2015)

Na, I left all my scorn at the office the day I retired. Looking at the parts diagram, I have a couple of questions, because that picture, in this case, is only worth about 250 words.

You mentioned that the spacer 21, slides inside the set collar, 19. That tells me that the set collar is larger than the hex shaft and if you were to tighten the set screws on the hex shaft, that the collar would not be centered on the shaft. Is that correct?

is the spacer wider than the collar? How was this assembled when you took it apart the first time? Is it possible that the spacer should go half way into the collar and be clamped there so that part of spacer protrudes out the right side or the collar to contact the sprocket and maintain a gap. probably about the width of the chain side plate plus clearance?

Let hope the other member with a machine similar to yours can take a photo of what is should look like and post it here.

What locks the sprocket to the shaft?


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## wilfredjr (Jan 16, 2016)

The sprocket is machined a tad on the end to grip the hex after allowing the round end of the shaft out the other side,; the friction disc hub (9) center is also hex.
Just spent the afternoon out on the porch in single digits discovering my limitations. I was all wrong about the set collar (19) and spacer, which do not touch when properly fitted. I failed to recognize that the old plastic thrust collar, gray with grease, was still in place against the disc hub (9), causing the displacement we were discussing. Memory of prior battles did not register until re-enacted. Apologies. 
I got everything back together on the machine as I believe it goes, and it makes me think that the admonition on the parts diagram to torque the set screws and apply Loctite is not boilerplate copy, because it's the only thing left undone. I did the set screws with a small wrench, and have no Loctite on hand.
Cascading failure might happen like this: The set screws loosen enough to allow the set collar to slip off the disc hub during shifting, and then the slide pin end comes out of the bushing on the arm assembly (12), and Bob's yer uncle, everything gets ground up.
It was too cold for a test run. I'll try it out tomorrow and let you know what happens. Or should I wait till I can buy some Loctite? Does that stuff work?


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## skutflut (Oct 16, 2015)

Loctite works. It comes in different grades, one of which is more or less permanent, making future removal a problem. I use the blue Loctite 242 medium strength, (which comes in a red bottle), and it's designed to sort of harden up on the threads once things are tight to keep threads from vibrating loose. The stuff allows you to remove fasteners, and you can tell the bolt has loctite on it when you remove it because it does put up a bit of a fight. Also remember that when reinstalling a bolt that had loctite on it, to clean off the old stuff off before reapplying it. Perhaps somebody else will be able to which would be best for your application. 

When the manufacturer go to the trouble to specify a torque setting for a fastener, you should follow that specification. Torque wrenches can be had relatively cheap, and come in handy for engine work as well. Trick there is to get one that covers the range of torque you will likely encounter. 

I picked one up on Amazon made by Capri. It is calibrated in INCH/ Pounds which is the rating of all the bolts on my small engines, except for the flywheel nut which is in FOOT/pounds. The range for mine is 20 IN/LB to 250 IN/LB. That covers everything I need for lawnmower and snowblower. I think it was about 35 dollars. 

Be really careful if you get a wrench in FT/LB. Heard many tales of people torquing bolts with the wrong wrench and snapping them off because the tried to do a 60 IN/LB bolt at 60 FT/LB. If you have one in FT/LB, divide the IN/lb by 12 to get FT/LB reading, although you will probably find that most FT/LB tools cannot go down that low, IE 60 IN/LB = 5 FT/LB.

From the look of the last photo, you seem to have it back together again, although that friction rubber wheel looks like its seen better days. The angle makes it look as if the rubber might be hitting the drive plate right on the edge adding to the chew on the rubber. Is that just the angle, or is the rubber actually running on the very edge?


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## wilfredjr (Jan 16, 2016)

*Further Misadventure*



skutflut said:


> From the look of the last photo, you seem to have it back together again, although that friction rubber wheel looks like its seen better days. The angle makes it look as if the rubber might be hitting the drive plate right on the edge adding to the chew on the rubber. Is that just the angle, or is the rubber actually running on the very edge?


Well, the Loctite worked well, and the set collar has remained in place for two snows. I found another use for it on the test drive, when the Hexhead Capscrew #25 fell out somewhere on the drive, strewing parts in the snow as I went my merry way. Somehow, I found everything but the capscrew, but was able to scrounge up a working replacement, and cleaned up the modest 6" accumulation the next day.
Performance issues did resurface, immediately, as the shifter continued to slip out of the gear slot. In fact, when I tried to run today after another near-miss storm deposited a mere 4", instead of the big one everyone but me was looking for, the drive belt began slipping off of the traction pulley in ever-shorter intervals.
This happened repeatedly after I'd get it back on, and I got to thinking about what you posted earlier concerning the friction disc's uneven wear, which I had thought was due to damage from being run too far or too long on the edge of the drive disc. 
There seems to be a lot of play to the drive disc once it's free of the tension belt, and maybe you were right about the bearing being shot and causing a wobble. Of course, there's a spring mount in there that I have no clue about, so I don't know what I'm saying. At the time, I didn't know about this bearing (#46) inside, and only inspected the bearing on the hex-rod assembly (#5) that I could see.
Before I start ordering parts and tearing things apart, what is the purpose of part #48, Key, Woodruff? I should think I need part# 43, 46 and 47 anyway; probably should replace the friction disc again.
Why else might the belt come off repeatedly under strain? It's new last year with the friction disc and can hardly be stretched out.


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## wilfredjr (Jan 16, 2016)

*Pep Talk Please*

Parts should be at the mailbox today. Any advice before I start to pull the pulley? I'm worried about removing the spindle with that "key" in there. Is there a trick to getting it out? What holds it in place? My ramps are pretty low and the low clearance will make for close work when I'm under there.


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## zeagle50 (Jul 5, 2021)

hello wilfredjr - I am having the same problem with my simplicity - the plastic thrust collar is all chewed up - did you ever find a fix for it ? Any hep would be appreciated - thanks


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## Oneacer (Jan 3, 2011)

This thread is over 5 years old .... Try pm him ... He may be gone from this forum?


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## zeagle50 (Jul 5, 2021)

Ok thank you - I will try that!


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## Oneacer (Jan 3, 2011)

BTW, if you can post a photo of what you are referring to. a lot of knowledgeable people here might be able to assist.


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