Blowing Sticky / Wet Snow

[MapleLeafFarmer]

if your blower is plugging up with wet snow, I know a lot of people will use silicone or cooking sprays in the chute and impeller housing.

I would suggest check your tolerance / clearance of your impeller and it's housing. For my Buhler /Farm King blowers the space between the impeller and its housing is very tight so no loss of blowing / clearing power. Never had a problem blowing wet snow or big piles with these blowers.

Today I worked on an almost new green blower that had close to 1/2 gap between the fan blades and the housing.... I felt performance was very poor and blower not moving the volume of snow it should.

So I cut up some conveyor belt I had laying around and bolted it to the impeller fan closing off the gap between the impeller fan and the housing to almost nothing.

Boy o' boy after first test this repaired blower probably blows twice as much snow & double the distance from before the gap was narrowed. Can probably now run the tractor at lower pto rpm's and still get the job done very well.

1 1/2 hours of labor and less than $10 worth of material doubled the blowers capacity and I am going to guess it will no longer have wet snow plugging issues again.

I have not had problems with my blowers with sticks or gravel with tight tolerances so felt closing the gap on the newer green blower brought to me would not be a problem either.

so if you are having trouble with wet snow plugging your impeller housing / chute check the tolerance between your impeller fan and its housing and see if there is a gap and see if there is a way to minimize it like I did. You might find your blower starts to blow well above its weight class with more snow being moved at faster speeds OR lower rpm's capable of doing same job.

 

[nbking]

Thanks for the info, definitely will do that upgrade to mine. I have heard you can use a cheap type floor mat, those flimsy ones Walmart sells.

 

[DustyRusty]

How do you keep the impeller in balance? I have read about this in the past, but was warned by a number of people that have extensive repair experience with snow blowers that if the impeller is off balance, it is going to vibrate violently. I would like to see some pictures of this modification prior to attempting it.

 

[Orange1forme]

How do you keep the impeller in balance? I have read about this in the past, but was warned by a number of people that have extensive repair experience with snow blowers that if the impeller is off balance, it is going to vibrate violently. I would like to see some pictures of this modification prior to attempting it.

Just spouting off but if you are wanting to be precise then make sure all that you add is the same weight.

Weigh and measure the "flaps/paddles" and use the same mounting system on each.

 

[Orange1forme]

if your blower is plugging up with wet snow, I know a lot of people will use silicone or cooking sprays in the chute and impeller housing.

I would suggest check your tolerance / clearance of your impeller and it's housing. For my Buhler /Farm King blowers the space between the impeller and its housing is very tight so no loss of blowing / clearing power. Never had a problem blowing wet snow or big piles with these blowers.

Today I worked on an almost new green blower that had close to 1/2 gap between the fan blades and the housing.... I felt performance was very poor and blower not moving the volume of snow it should.

So I cut up some conveyor belt I had laying around and bolted it to the impeller fan closing off the gap between the impeller fan and the housing to almost nothing.

Boy o' boy after first test this repaired blower probably blows twice as much snow & double the distance from before the gap was narrowed. Can probably now run the tractor at lower pto rpm's and still get the job done very well.

1 1/2 hours of labor and less than $10 worth of material doubled the blowers capacity and I am going to guess it will no longer have wet snow plugging issues again.

I have not had problems with my blowers with sticks or gravel with tight tolerances so felt closing the gap on the newer green blower brought to me would not be a problem either.

so if you are having trouble with wet snow plugging your impeller housing / chute check the tolerance between your impeller fan and its housing and see if there is a gap and see if there is a way to minimize it like I did. You might find your blower starts to blow well above its weight class with more snow being moved at faster speeds OR lower rpm's capable of doing same job.

There are quite a few utube videos on this.

 

[MapleLeafFarmer]

Just spouting off but if you are wanting to be precise then make sure all that you add is the same weight.

Weigh and measure the "flaps/paddles" and use the same mounting system on each.

exactly.... take a little care and thought and no vibration or problems so far (fingers crossed).

I actually used a digital scale I use for weighing reloading power to make sure the weights of each 4 were almost the same. Weighed the conveyor belt, nylon nut/washers/bolts to make sure each assembly was about the same. Punched the rubber in same spot and measure placement on metal impeller to match as well. When I tested it was smooth and quite. Time will tell how long it holds up but conveyor belt is pretty strong stuff.

As you mentioned Youtube is a great source of how too!

I should have taken pic's before it went out the shop door.

Cheers

 

[GeoBx2680]

^^^^ boakley. As you mentioned Youtube is a great source of how to !
Yes if your watching a good video ! I've seen some questionable videos on "How to do things" on Youtube.

As far as the wet/sticky snow. I put the plow on if its a wet snow only takes 10 minutes.Not by choice plowing takes me longer but don't want to deal with the chute plugging up

 

[RCW]

I learned here on OTT that the use of something to close that gap is common.

Never tried it as I haven't had a need, but the guys that do it swear by it.

 

[JerryMT]

if your blower is plugging up with wet snow, I know a lot of people will use silicone or cooking sprays in the chute and impeller housing.

I would suggest check your tolerance / clearance of your impeller and it's housing. For my Buhler /Farm King blowers the space between the impeller and its housing is very tight so no loss of blowing / clearing power. Never had a problem blowing wet snow or big piles with these blowers.

Today I worked on an almost new green blower that had close to 1/2 gap between the fan blades and the housing.... I felt performance was very poor and blower not moving the volume of snow it should.

So I cut up some conveyor belt I had laying around and bolted it to the impeller fan closing off the gap between the impeller fan and the housing to almost nothing.

Boy o' boy after first test this repaired blower probably blows twice as much snow & double the distance from before the gap was narrowed. Can probably now run the tractor at lower pto rpm's and still get the job done very well.

1 1/2 hours of labor and less than $10 worth of material doubled the blowers capacity and I am going to guess it will no longer have wet snow plugging issues again.

I have not had problems with my blowers with sticks or gravel with tight tolerances so felt closing the gap on the newer green blower brought to me would not be a problem either.

so if you are having trouble with wet snow plugging your impeller housing / chute check the tolerance between your impeller fan and its housing and see if there is a gap and see if there is a way to minimize it like I did. You might find your blower starts to blow well above its weight class with more snow being moved at faster speeds OR lower rpm's capable of doing same job.

Did you ever consider bolting it to the impeller housing? You need more material but there is no need worry about impeller balance and having cracks propagating from holes drilled in the impeller.

 

[thebicman]

I would imagine it would be very difficult to add to the housing. Can you imagine if one of the bolts came loose. There goes a shear pin.

 

[JerryMT]

I would imagine it would be very difficult to add to the housing. Can you imagine if one of the bolts came loose. There goes a shear pin.

Can you imagine a chunk of the impeller coming off because of a crack? And they make Nylok nuts to retain the bolts.

 

[Uncle Henry]

There are quite a few utube videos on this.

This guy has a lot of good videos on the youtubes - including one on tightening the gap in your blower.

Sixtyfiveford

 

[tjstractor]

There is actually premade kits of these to make it easy if you want at least for the green coloured blowers. I've seen them on ebay.