# ST 224 chute won't turn right



## henrod

Hi all. I bought the ST 224 new from Lowe's last season and only now realized that the chute should be able to turn a full 180º. Mine goes fully left and stops just past center. I adjusted the cables as much as possible, but I only got a few more degrees - it won't turn fully to the right. Husq's site is no help - all they'll do is refer you to a dealer/service center.

Any ideas? THanks.

Scott


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## JLawrence08648

I'm not familiar with your machine but let me help.

Sometimes you have to go back to basics and eliminate.

Disconnect the cable and manually turn the chute to see if it goes the full amount it is suppose to. Are you sure it is supposed to turn 180 on that model? If it doesn't, then look for what is preventing. 

While the cable is dislocated, that model does have a cable? If not, then rod, move it from end to end to check for tightness and to determine how far it is suppose to turn. Measure and mark the middle, mark a little from each end, put it back with the chute facing forward with the middle marked and showing. Now try it, at the full end, see if the 2 marks near the end appear.


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## Town

I have a 2004 Craftsman that has the same features as a Husqvarna, including that cable operated chute. The chute does move fully left and right and is at least 180 degrees of movement if not more. There is no adjustment procedure in my manual for those cables. The way mine works is there is a vertically mounted shift lever that you press down to release the lock so the lever can move fully to the left or right. You have two independent outer sheath cables that run from the ends of the lever control under the control panel so that you feed out one side of inner cable and pull in the other side of inner cable. The two outer cables run from the fixed portion of the lever control to the chute control assembly mounted on a steel tube and attached to the chute. The inner wire is one piece and it is wound around the plastic sheave in that chute control unit. The chute control has a square projection that mounts into a square hole in the chute (on a short lever).

There are two possible causes to your problem of chute turning full left but not far to the right: 

1. the chute control was inserted into the chute square hole when control lever and chute were not aligned correctly;

2. the inner wire was not wound onto the sheave correctly, which is unlikely but possible.

I think #1 is the more likely. So move the lever and chute to the left and undo the mount of the chute control from the chute (and likely the steel support tube). Now move the lever to the middle position so that the square projection from control will align with the square opening on the chute when the chute is straight ahead. Attach the control to the chute (and steel tube) keeping the chute in center position (pointing straight ahead). Now you should have full movement left and right.


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## dr bob

If the chute turns right but doesn't go "all the way", there are cable adjustments available that will make that happen. Things to think about:

-- Your final adjustment need to allow a small amount of slack in the cables. You don't want to have tension on both cables at the same time.

-- To maintain that small amount of free-play, you may need to relax the adjustment on the "pulls left" cable to allow you to extend the adjustment on the "pulls right" cable.

Procedure: 

-- Start off by checking the play in the cables with the chute at center. Use the chute direction lever to center the position of the chute in its travel. Your lever should be at center withe the chute facing straight ahead. Verify there that there is some slack in the cables by moving the lever slightly left and right. You can look/feel the cables where they connect with the bottom end of the lever under the console panel to confirm that the cables are both relaxed slightly.

-- Start tightening the cable on the right, using the adjuster mid-span in the cable. go a little at a time, enough to take the slack out. Loosen the left-side cable as needed to maintain a small amount of slack with the lever at neutral position centered.

-- Periodically, slowly move the lever to the two extremes to confirm that there as always a small amount of slack in the cables.

-- Your goal is to have the lever move the chute as far both left and right as you need. At full-left on the lever, the chute should just reach full-left position. On my slightly-larger machine, travel is limited to the left by the hoop that includes the top pivot for the chute. At full-right on the lever, the left-side cable needs to still have a small amount of slack.

---

The assembly instructions around the pivot mounting are pretty good. The torque on the bolts that hold the pivot to the hoop aren't torque-wrench critical, but need to be pretty tight. The tension on the pivot bolt itself is critical only to maintain enough clearance to allow it to move.

Beyond what the instructions share, it's a good idea to add some lubrication to the sliding surfaces at the bottom where the chute sits above the impeller, and the pivot at the top. I used waterproof boat trailer wheel bearing grease. You can get some short-term benefit with silicone spray lubricant or similar. You already know that WD-40 is a cleaning solvent with virtually no extended lubrication benefits.

The cables themselves deserve a little lubrication. The steel wires pass through plastic liners in the cables themselves, so are pretty much self-lubricating. I still send some silicone spray down the cables when new to give them a better chance at extended life. 

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No matter the available travel on the chute, there will always be times when "a few more degrees" will seem to help. It may be tempting to try to keep the cables tighter to gain those few degrees. Going back to the cables themselves, they are steel cable in plastic tubes. Constant tension will wear the plastic and make them harder to move. Eventually they will fail, which is no fun. They never fail in the middle of summer while you are doing your pre-season work, sitting in the workshop with the tools, a beer, and all the replacement materials handy. At least that's been my [long] experience. 


HTH!


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## JimCanuck

I have the same issue with the same snowblower. Husqvarna is zero help. Did you ever get this resolved? Any help is appreciated.


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