# Auger Shaft Alignment after pins sheered.



## geoffreyp (Jan 3, 2018)

Hi All,

Thanks in advance to taking a read.

I have a snow-thrower attachment for a craftsman ride-on mower. 

I sheared one of the pins, and couldn't get it out because the auger hole doesn't quite line up with the shaft hole, off by approx 3mm, to the side.

The other sheer pin is jammed in, though on that side of the auger works just fine. 

The shear pins holes are not centered on the center gear assembly, the shear pin hole is about 149mm from the gear assembly on the side with the sheered pin, and 155mm on the side with the jammed pin.

I'm guessing from this that the shaft has shifted - I'm assuming the the sheer pin holes should be equidistant from the center?

Any ideas how you move the shaft? I've tried gently tapping it with a hammer, but hesitant to do it with any force without know what I'm doing.

Thanks again for reading so far, and for any thoughts you may have.

Cheers,
Geoffrey


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## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

Welcome to the forum.

You are going to be getting a lot of feedback about your problem and all will be good. Just different thoughts about how to solve your problem.

What you don't want to do is enlarge the holes.

It would probably be easier if your auger was well lubed prior to this happening, both greased and oiled using synthetic oil.

The best way would probably be to re-align the holes. I prefer not to bang with a hammer. 

There are two alignments here, to the side, and to the front and rear. You

Prior to doing this, I would prefer to remove as much of the shear pin material as possible. You can try doing this with a Dremel but you probably won't be successful. I would resort to using a drill. The more material you remove the easier it will be to move the auger to align the holes.

To align the front and rear holes use a 2x4 wedging it in and turning the auger. If you have a welding torch head, heating that area will soften the shear pin metal allowing the movement of the alignment to flow easier.

To move side to side, try squeezing a screwdriver or pry bar in the space at the end. You may have to remove the sides of the housing and use a puller on the auger rakes. None of this is going to be fun in this weather.


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## geoffreyp (Jan 3, 2018)

Thanks JLawrence!

I'm not 100% sure I follow what you said about front and back alignment. 

I missed something in my explanation - I removed the augers, gearbox, and impeller as a unit. Once out of the housing, I was able to slide the auger off the shaft, and then it was easy to remove the sheared pin. 

I can't get a new pin in, because the alignment is off sideways. Other pin is not sheared, but binding against something, I'm assuming the shaft since it seems to be miss aligned. I bet I can get it out if I break it, but since that will wreck the pin I was hoping to avoid that. 

You solution I think with a screw driver or pry bar I think is with the shaft and augers installed in the housing correct?


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## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

Your initial explanation didn't state you had removed the auger. On a side note, grease the auger and impeller bearings.

Don't worry about saving a shear pin, replace it, get it out of there! Use a punch, put new ones in and grease them, preferably using synthetic grease.

The holes should line up. Could you have them swapped? Left and right sides? Or have them backwards? The holes may not be in the same location for each auger.


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## geoffreyp (Jan 3, 2018)

So sorry, missed that part of the explanation!

I knocked out the other pin. Both augers are off the shaft. They don't line up either way. Both augers have holes for shear pins the same distance from their ends. The shaft holes are different distances from the central gear box, (one closer, one father) and the whole shaft itself is longer on one side by the same margin. 

I would expect that the shaft should be centered right?

Thanks again!


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## DriverRider (Nov 20, 2016)

Sounds like it should be centered. Scribe a mark on the long side of shaft 3mm away from gear box. Using a block of wood and hammer try tapping on end of shaft bringing it back to centered. If no go then open gear box and figure out what happened.


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## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

Take apart the gear box, possibly there is a pin or clip inside that allowed the shaft to move. Retrace your work, put the augers back on in every combination, backwards, forwards, left and right. It would have to be one of these, gear box or auger.


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## HCBPH (Mar 8, 2011)

Most auger cases I've had apart, the shaft slides in the case, with the gear centered on the shaft. If you take it easy, hold the gear case in hand and tap the end of the shaft lightly with a hammer and see if it moves in relation to the gear case or not. If not, it may be held up via rust on the shaft. If you can't get it centered, open the case, clean up the shaft and center the gear then reassemble.


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## geoffreyp (Jan 3, 2018)

Thanks everybody for all the help. Before I took the gear box apart, I tried bracing the central unit with a 2x4 against the concrete lip my garage and hammering it again. It took a while, I was being gentle, but eventually I got it aligned. So now it's got two new pins, I put it all back together, went to test it and the battery was flat. Lets hope it works!

Stay warm, and thanks again.

Cheers,
GP


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## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

This doesn't sound good. The auger rakes, the auger itself, should spin easily when the shear pins are not in. If they don't, you take a reasonably good chance of breaking something costly, like the gear box. Again, since you have the holes lined up, if you remove the shear pins, will the auger rakes spin easily? If not, you need to fix this!!! And if not, then there is no purpose to have the shear pins, the auger rakes are not going to turn, they've become fixed. If you hit something, the shear pins break, shear, and the suffer rakes turn freely.


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## geoffreyp (Jan 3, 2018)

Oh they span freely without pins for sure. Once I got the pins out the augers spun just fine. I was able to easily slide them off and just work on the shaft.


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## Freemanator (Dec 27, 2021)

JLawrence08648 said:


> Welcome to the forum.
> 
> You are going to be getting a lot of feedback about your problem and all will be good. Just different thoughts about how to solve your problem.
> 
> ...


Thanks, just confirmed what I thought, getting a drill bit out now!!


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