# Honda HS1332 Newb Questions



## JGillTech (Nov 27, 2014)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! In NE, we were blessed with our first good snow of the season. About a month ago I purchased a HS1332 and was eagerly waiting for the day to arrive. I took the machine out today, and wasn't too happy with my experience... Given that I haven't adjusted anything from the dealer, I know that my issues must be a combination of adjustments and lack of experience with a track snowblower. 

I put up a good fight moving around the HS1332. After retiring to the garage I noticed a few unpleasant things. During use the worm gear appeared to have moved away from the gear on the chute, causing the teeth to get knicked a bit. I repositioned the worm gear, but its still very difficult to turn the chute. I plan on breaking it down to add some lubricate and to realign things. Anyone have any recommendations on lubricate that will meet this need? 

The second issue I noticed was that the blower housing appears to have dragged going up the bottom of the driveway. I switched from the low to the medium height setting before going up the incline, but that wasn't enough apparently. I was on the lowest setting in some places where snow was compacted by a vehicle. Between that and the end of the driveway, the housing AND the auger itself appears to have taken some damage. The ice chippers on the augur have their black finsh taken off and bare metal exposed... I assume that doesn't happen in normal use. How do I mitigate against this happening in the future? I see that the skid shoes are placed directly behind the snowblower housing. Can/should I move these to the side of the blower housing? Should I purchase another set and have 2 pairs of skid shoes? Is there an OEM skid shoe that is a better fit to protect the blower housing? How about other things I should look at to protect the auger from contacting the driveway? I don't expect normal wear and tear to take the black finish off the auger... it had to contact the driveway. 

Last, but not least. How does one swing a 180 at the end of the path to come back again? I found that it took quite a bit of man hanlding and fighting the treads. I don't want to damage the treads in addition to the other things that I may have already damaged. Any recommendations for a total honda newb? This is clearly user error as all the research I have done prior to this purchase spoke to the quality of this machine. Please help . 

Thanks!


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## JnC (Feb 21, 2014)

Welcome to SBF, from a bellow New Englander. 

When I bought my used HS624 I noticed the same issue that you are seeing i.e. scrapping of the sides and also the augers against the pavement. 

I'd invest in some armorskids

SnowBlowerSkids to take care of the bottoming out issue. 

If you are talking about the worm gear on the chute base then i'd double check and make sure the plastic collar is in place, if it is there then just use some lithium grease to free things up a bit. 

The 1332 is a big/heavy machine, so some manhandling would be required as anticipated, its difficult to adjust, at first, if you are coming from a wheeled machine. It helps if you use the adjustment paddle to raise the machine, turn around and kick it down again. 

By the way the slush that we got yesterday makes things difficult for any given machine, not just the Honda, wait till we get some real snow to gauge its performance , cheers.


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## RoyP (Oct 16, 2014)

I agree with JnC about the skids, since your driveway has this configuration at the end, I'm guessing where it meets the road. Then the side skid shoes will help to keep the auger away from the blacktop. After you install them, you can remove the original equipment shoes that are behind the auger assembly. Run your machine in the middle position, if you do put it in the low position, your auger is going to hit the blacktop. 
It does take some getting used to it. I'm running a used but new to me HS1132.


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## JGillTech (Nov 27, 2014)

Thanks for the responses. Yes the snow was heavy and wet indeed, not ideal for my first run. I am concerned about the damage of running the augers into the ground on the low settng and down at the bottom of the driveway. The augers are approximately $330 each, not to mention my labor to replace them. They are not in need of immediate repair, but the thought of damaging something so expensive in this short run doesn't sit well. 

In regard to the armorskids, would it hurt to run those on the blower housing with the OEM on the rear of the blower housing? I am going to pull the trigger on these and look to my local hardware store for fastners. I will likely modify the skid to accomodate the scrapper blade bolt so I don't have to space the skid out too far from the housing, keep it tight . I will share once I have them installed and modified as required. 

I will grease up the chute gear and readjust the contact (backlash) between the worm and the ring gear on the chute. I think that will take care of that problem. 

Good thought about adjusting the height and then turning. I will try this next storm and see if it helps. I know it mentions the low setting is for ice, other than that, do you foresee any issues with losing this setting when I put some skids on the blower housing? To be honest, it's not easy to get the blower into the low setting anyways .


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## RoyP (Oct 16, 2014)

JGillTech said:


> Thanks for the responses. Yes the snow was heavy and wet indeed, not ideal for my first run. I am concerned about the damage of running the augers into the ground on the low settng and down at the bottom of the driveway. The augers are approximately $330 each, not to mention my labor to replace them. They are not in need of immediate repair, but the thought of damaging something so expensive in this short run doesn't sit well.
> 
> In regard to the armorskids, would it hurt to run those on the blower housing with the OEM on the rear of the blower housing? I am going to pull the trigger on these and look to my local hardware store for fastners. I will likely modify the skid to accomodate the scrapper blade bolt so I don't have to space the skid out too far from the housing, keep it tight . I will share once I have them installed and modified as required.
> 
> ...



As the owner of a previous snowblower for years. Running a machine so that the auger hits the pavement is my idea of a bad design by the engineers at Honda. If you want a machine that drives the augers into the frozen tundra, I would think you have to shop elsewhere, not for a general snowblower but for a ice scrapper. . I have a HS1132 that I can not run on anything but high, with the shoes & scraper bar off (out of the equation) if I put it in medium the auger housing scrapes the concrete remember shoes & bar are off. Forget about Low, it's more like a plow then anything close to a blower. I have spoken to Honda National support, according to them. They have never heard of any problem with a Honda doing this. With all the discussion on here about it, how is it possible that National has never heard of it.

I have seen just a few days ago, a set of shoes for the generic snowblower. I think they would work great for you. Check them out, about 6" long 4" high
Happy Snow Blowing


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