# Auger won't stop turning



## GaryS

I've run into an odd problem with a friend's Cub Cadet 528. It's about a 2010 vintage. 

I know it's an MTD product, and I've worked on a few of them. Pretty simple machines overall, but this is baffling. 

Back in the spring a I did a complete PM following the factory service manual. He'd never done one, although he had replaced the auger drive belt. In addition to the PM, I replaced all of the springs for the auger as they were pretty rusted. He also had a couple of bent auger blades, so I took the auger apart and replaced those along with the skids and scraper plate. 

So, a PM plus a number of repairs. 

One thing I noticed during the work was that the auger drive belt was very sloppy and that seemed to slap agains the plastic cover over the drive pulleys. I checked the belt part number and it's correct, weird as it seemed. 

I put it all back together and everything worked. The weird thing is that even when the augur handle is released, the auger still turns. It turns slowly, and it will stop if it's run into some snow. My friend insists that it has done this since the belt was changed, so I'm reasonably sure it wasn't anything that I did. 

I've looked at everything I can think of. Other than separate the auger unit from the drive (which I won't be able to until spring), I can't think of anything else that I can check. 

Is it possible that the auger drive pully (the large one) has a rough enough surface that it's still grabbing the pulley when it's released? 

I should mention, that I loosened the auger cable, actually I took it off, to eliminate adjustment. 

So, two questions. 

1) Is it normal for the drive belt to be so sloppy when not engaged that it slaps the plastic cover. Slaps it hard enough that it chews up the inside of the cover. That doesn't seem right to me and I've never seen it with the Troy Bilt machines that a neighbor has that I've also worked on. 

2) What the heck is causing the auger to keep turning when the belt is supposed to be disengaged? 

Thanks.


----------



## JLawrence08648

The auger belt should be very tight when engaged. Your belt is too too long. Check the pathway that it's correct and the idler pulley. I find one problem, people have a 3/8" wide belt rather than a 1/2" belt. The 3/8" belt sits down in the pulley and grabs, engages.


----------



## GaryS

Thanks. I'll have to re recheck the belt. :smile_big: I have the correct part number and my recollection is that the one on there was the correct one, but maybe not. 

The part number I've seen is 954-04050A.

The belt is actually pretty tight when engaged, but very, very loose when released. 




JLawrence08648 said:


> The auger belt should be very tight when engaged. Your belt is too too long. Check the pathway that it's correct and the idler pulley. I find one problem, people have a 3/8" wide belt rather than a 1/2" belt. The 3/8" belt sits down in the pulley and grabs, engages.


----------



## Dauntae

As for the augers still turning, There is a brake of sorts in there someplace that when not engaged presses against the pulley to stop it from spinning, Usually attached to the engagement pulley that tensions the belt.


----------



## Town

Dauntae said:


> As for the augers still turning, There is a brake of sorts in there someplace that when not engaged presses against the pulley to stop it from spinning, Usually attached to the engagement pulley that tensions the belt.


I think that worn brake material is a good point. The brake is intended to stop the impeller/auger pulley from turning when the clutch is released and the brake material snaps against the pulley to stop it. Probably the belt tensioning pulley adjustment has been slackened off to help prevent the auger from turning and now the too loose belt is jumping when the belt tension is released by the clutch and hitting the belt cover. The brake should apply and stop the auger from moving in just a few seconds. The brake can be replaced.

Good luck.


----------



## GaryS

Thank you! That makes sense as there is a piece at the opposite end of the augur idler pulley bracket. I thought that was part of the mechanism to keep the belt on when the auger was disengaged. Now that you've pointed it out, it might be the brake. 

The first thing I'm going to look at is the positioning of the spring that is supposed to pull that back into place when the auger lever is released. That's one of the springs that I replaced, but maybe it's not positioned correctly and isn't putting enough tension on the bracket to stop the augur. 

Definitely worth looking at before I break the machine in half to get at the auger pulley. 



Town said:


> I think that worn brake material is a good point. The brake is intended to stop the impeller/auger pulley from turning when the clutch is released and the brake material snaps against the pulley to stop it. Probably the belt tensioning pulley adjustment has been slackened off to help prevent the auger from turning and now the too loose belt is jumping when the belt tension is released by the clutch and hitting the belt cover. The brake should apply and stop the auger from moving in just a few seconds. The brake can be replaced.
> 
> Good luck.


----------



## Jackmels

Loosen the Cable that Tensions the Auger Belt a Bit.


----------



## GaryS

I'll try that as well, however my recollection is that last spring when I was first trying to sort this out, I took the cable completely off. 

The ideas here give a few things to look at. These machines aren't that complex that this should be a huge mystery. Still, it's a PITA. 



Jackmels said:


> Loosen the Cable that Tensions the Auger Belt a Bit.


----------



## ChuckD6321

GaryS said:


> I'll try that as well, however my recollection is that last spring when I was first trying to sort this out, I took the cable completely off.
> 
> The ideas here give a few things to look at. These machines aren't that complex that this should be a huge mystery. Still, it's a PITA.



I know this is old, but did you resolve this?


----------



## Oneacer

@Chuck,

GaryS posted these questions 2 years ago, and nothing since.

It is safe to say he moved on …. many people dabble in trying to fix there blowers, come here and ask a question, and then never respond back with an outcome and move on.


----------



## ChuckD6321

Yes oneacer. I've been on the internet since the early 90's. I know. And sometimes it's worth a shot.


----------



## melson

It's kind of a 'forum sin', I think, to get generous people involved and then disappear, leaving all those who offered help wondering the outcome.


----------



## Oneacer

Well, I would assume that there issue(s) had been resolved, otherwise they most likely would have kept posting, thus our efforts at assistance were fruitful.

Many people with issues or questions will come in this forum just to scan or browse, often picking up information along the way relating to there own issue, or just to have a better understanding of some maintenance or other tid bits, to help them along in the upkeep of there machine (s), without ever chiming in or even signing up.


----------



## melson

I worked in a small tech support team, just 5 of us for the east coast. So we pretty much knew what the others were doing. 
The first question ask on weekly conference call was "what did you find?"
It's human nature to be curious, and by understanding the outcome we all learned and our company benefited.


----------



## GaryS

As it happened, I worked on it some more then my friend decided to buy a new one. After ignoring my advice the first time out and buying the Cub Cadet, this time he listened and bought an Ariens. 

That was actually a year ago. He never told me what he did with the old one, but I assume he gave it to the shop he bought the Ariens from. 

I sort of forgot about the whole thing, but out of curiosity now I'm reading the replies. 



oneacer said:


> @*Chuck*,
> 
> GaryS posted these questions 2 years ago, and nothing since.
> 
> It is safe to say he moved on …. many people dabble in trying to fix there blowers, come here and ask a question, and then never respond back with an outcome and move on.


----------



## tabora

ChuckD6321 said:


> Yes oneacer. I've been on the internet since the early 90's. I know. And sometimes it's worth a shot.


Ahh, you jogged a memory... When I started on the 'Net, it was called ARPANet. That was in the mid-1970s; my, have times changed!


----------



## SayItAintSnow

tabora said:


> _Ahh, you jogged a memory... When I started on the 'Net, it was called ARPANet. That was in the mid-1970s; my, have times changed!_


_*Tabora:*_
Ha! The "good ol' days, huh? 

Back then using a phone handset acoustic coupler, or if you were really "state of the art", a 300 baud modem hooked up to your DEC or Data General mini computer to connect to the outside world.
( Young computer users today couldn't even imagine what we had to work with back then, when 4 kbytes of (core) memory was considered extravagant.....lol!) .:icon-cheers:
.
.


----------



## tabora

SayItAintSnow said:


> Ha! The "good ol' days, huh? Back then using a phone handset acoustic coupler, or if you were really "state of the art", a 300 baud modem hooked up to your DEC or Data General mini computer to connect to the outside world.


 Yup, DEC PDP 8s, 10s & 11s that you had to toggle in the boot loader on the front panel; ASR Model 33 TTYs with acoustic couplers; auto-dialers that tapped the phone switch-hooks with a robot finger to pulse dial. 2.5MB 10" disk drives. And LOUD line printers!

You're in a maze of twisty passages, all alike...


----------



## ChuckD6321

SayItAintSnow said:


> _*Tabora:*_
> Ha! The "good ol' days, huh?
> 
> Back then using a phone handset acoustic coupler, or if you were really "state of the art", a 300 baud modem hooked up to your DEC or Data General mini computer to connect to the outside world.
> ( Young computer users today couldn't even imagine what we had to work with back then, when 4 kbytes of (core) memory was considered extravagant.....lol!) .:icon-cheers:
> .
> .


 While I'm not quite as grizzled, I actually was dialing into BBS's in the late 80's via a dumb terminal and needed to understand *NIX and VAX to find my way around. That led to actually dialing into an academic ISP run on a VAX (sigh) and learning the ways of Usenet, so I do have a little experience with forums and their dynamic user habits. That all led to a 24 year career in IT which I recently retired from, but I digress.


One thing that I won't forget was foreseeing how it would take off with the invention of the WWW, and how now everyone and their aunt could get on the net. That foresight came from fresh memories of what happened with CB radio and the "Smokey and the Bandit" hysteria. An apt parallel.

And here we are!


To GaryS: That thread actually inspired me to look closely at this braking mechanism today since the belt wouldn't be flapping if the thing wasn't moving. I posted my question late last night when I couldn't easily go out to verify but I have since, and as I posted in another thread, fiddling with that brake thing solved the problem. So thanks for the reply (and for being around).


----------

