# Adding sheet metal to front housing to bust EOD



## JLawrence08648 (Jan 15, 2017)

Thinking about the best ways to bust through the EOD. But first you have to understand why the snowblower rides up. There's been discussion about putting weight on the front to keep it down but why is it riding up in the first place? I'm not trying to fix a problem, I'm trying to find the problem and solve it.
The snowblower is riding up because it's skiing up, skiing up on the skid shoes The skid shoes are acting as skis.

So I have three thoughts about this to solve the problem.

Remove the skid shoes when doing the EOD. No skid shoes, no riding up. This may allow the sides of the metal auger housing to cut in to the EOD berm. But who wants to remove the skid shoes during a snowstorm? Some may find this not practical to remove bolts. Or maybe come up with a design to quickly and easily removable skid shoes.You

If the cause is riding up on the skid shoes and removing them is not practical, then what about extending the auger housing, outward of course, using sheet metal. You may want to try this with an older machine as you will need to drill holes in the auger housing. My thinking is the skid shoes are too close to the front of the machine. Since we can't move the skid shoes backwards, or don't want to, without drilling more holes, and if we did move the skid shoes further back, this creates another problem placing the scraper blade in front of the skid shoes.

Lastly, many of the machines in the 60s and some in the 70s, the auger blades stick out in front of the housing. I assume for safety reasons the housing was extended to cover the auger blades. With the auger out front, are these machines any better busting through the EOD been especially plowed, hard, packed, and compacted? I have a mid 70s YardMan Snowbird that was a curb find with a blown engine (I have a 8hp to put on). My intention was to mount the 8hp, recondition the blower, making it usable, then using a jig saw, cut away a section of the side of the auger housing exposing the auger. And this is still my intention. Seeing how an exposed auger would work in the hard EOD. I was also thinking making these removable at least using a backing plate with nuts and bolts.


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## aldfam4 (Dec 25, 2016)

I think you're on to something!


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## Bob E (Jun 9, 2014)

From an old mtd snowflite owner's manual:


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## leonz (Dec 12, 2014)

If your intent on doing surgery;


You may just be better off cutting serrations/teeth in the 2 cross augers flights and then cut the sides and top edge of the cross auger housing off after trying the snow blower in the End Of Driveway Monster.


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## Spectrum (Jan 6, 2013)

Machines such as this excel at carving into EOD.









The auger is sweeping down so by nature that means if it can't pull the snow down it will climb up. I don't think messing with the skids is where you want to go. Making sure the scraper bar is sharp and has a tight fit to the bucket bottom will help is slice under the snow and hold the collector down. Encouraging the machine with a very slight side to size (sawing) action can also help it chew forward.

Pete


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## tpenfield (Feb 24, 2015)

IMO the machines ride up because of the rotation of the auger lifts the machine up as it goes into harder snow/ice. Just look at the picture of the Ariens above. 

This lifting force probably is greater than any downward force that you would get with the scraper blade trying to dig in, or any other bucket design modifications.

if you ran your snowblower into a narrow section of wall with the auger running, it would want to climb the wall . . .


if the augers were designed to rotate the opposite direction, the machine would tend to dig in rather than climb. I'm not sure why the blower manufacturers have decided to design the augers this way :smiley-confused013:


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## RIT333 (Feb 6, 2014)

JLawrence08648 said:


> The snowblower is riding up because it's skiing up, skiing up on the skid shoes The skid shoes are acting as skis.
> 
> Remove the skid shoes when doing the EOD. No skid shoes, no riding up. This may allow the sides of the metal auger housing to cut in to the EOD berm. But who wants to remove the skid shoes during a snowstorm? Some may find this not practical to remove bolts. Or maybe come up with a design to quickly and easily removable skid shoes.You


Great thought. Wonder if that is why Honda puts their shoes in back of the bucket, so they are riding on "cleaned" snow, instead of virgin snow ?


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## leonz (Dec 12, 2014)

Happy New Year all,


The issue is that the auger flights are made in the way they are with the flights facing inward to convey the snow pack to the center of the snow blower where it is pushed to the impeller by the forward advance of the snow blower in to the snow pack.

As a result they will climb up and if the auger flighting was running with the flighting in an equal and opposite angle the snow would be pushed forward until the snow blower is slowed to a crawl simply because of the pile of snow that has been pushed in front of it. 

The old single stage snow throwers had a tube that the flighting was welded to and they did not have this problem as the snow was conveyed to the center and thrown out at a high speed.

It would be simple for the manufacturers to accomplish with a larger engine and chain driven snow blower rotor but they are not interested apparently. 

As a piece of power equipment it would be more expensive to purchase and it would last longer so I doubt the other major maker of these things being MTD would do it anyway.

Cutting shallow serrations in the auger flights with a sawzall and adding weight to the front of it with a piece of 1/2 thick by 4 inch wide by X long steel plate will accomplish more if you are going to do anything with your own snow blower.


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## HCBPH (Mar 8, 2011)

If you're brainstorming here, think like a farmer. Take a look at manure spreaders and the discharge drums on them. They typically have tines or some form or serration on the drum to tear up the material before throwing it out. Thing is, anything it can grab into (whether man, beast or snow) it's going to do it's best to tear up without any feeling or concern for the recipient. I've known a couple of people that have lost arms or had serious physical damage done to themselves trying to unplug one of these machines and got caught in it. It does not forgive in the slightest.

I don't know if this modification is such a good idea, seems like it's a very dangerous modification to even consider IMO.

Personally the Searsasurus has no serrations on the augers. Many years I have had a 3' or better pile of slush, hard snow and ice plowed onto the sidewalk in front of the house by the city snowplows. If it's not removed immediately it freezes solid, which is usually what has happened by the time I get home from work. The blower does well tearing through it though I typically don't try and take off more than 18"-24" in a single pass starting at the top when cutting perpendicular through it. Either rock the blower up and down or cut through it from the top then come back and hit it again, it gets the job done. It's a heavy machine, plus having good tire chains on it aids in traction and with a 10HP engine on it gives it enough oomph to do the deed.


Worst case, get yourself a heavy ice chipper and chop into the EOD stuff to break it up a little so the blower can handle it. I've done that a time or two just to make it easier on the blower, but it's good exercise.


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## RedOctobyr (Mar 2, 2014)

Interesting discussion. Removing the skid shoes, as a test, would be quick, and reversible. 

If you had a "sacrificial" bucket, I do think it would be pretty interesting to cut off some of the sides, exposing the augers, to see how much it helps. Just be aware that they will tear up whatever you drive into. Bump your mailbox post, and the now-exposed augers will try to chew it up. 

As far as the rotation direction of the augers. It's true that rotating the other direction, so the fronts went up, would help hold the nose down. But I wonder if the augers would be less effective at doing their other role, which is transferring the snow to the center. 

Currently, gravity wants to keep the snow down at the bottom of the augers, as they bring it to the middle. And the shape of the bucket keeps a small gap between the augers and the bucket, making the "screw" of the augers work effectively. 

If you had them rotate the other way, the snow would try to fall down, out of the flights of the augers, as they rotated. And if the augers had a gap to the bucket at the top (like many traditional designs, to let you suck in deep snow), the snow might get flung up onto the top, outside surface of the bucket. Or just stay in the gap between the augers and bucket.

Now, if you used the "solid core" augers design of the PowerShift Toros, you could at least eliminate the problem of the snow falling down through the flights of the augers, as they rotated upwards. Bypassing one of the possible concerns, at least. 

But it would take a lot of work to try reversing the augers rotation direction, so it would be a challenging thing to test. Adding weight to hold the bucket down, while crude/clumsy, is at least easy.


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## CarlB (Jan 2, 2011)

if you bolted a couple pieces of angle iron on the housing facing forward about 10" past the bucket they would dig into the eod before the blower got there and help hold it from riding up. Sorta like tusks on an elephant. Think of drift brakers facing forward and at a slightly downward angle, might work.


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