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HSS 928 ATD Slush Blower

2K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  Spindler 
#1 ·
Oct 10 early snow. Nasty wet conditions ideal to test chute mods.

Takeaways for heavy slush .
1. If you blow slush, get the impeller kit mod.
2. Grind away the upper portion of the collar where it obstructs the flow through the chute. Leave the lower collar intact.
3. Experiment with low friction coatings for the chute and especially the black articulating chute pieces.


Now for the details: 4" wet snow/slush with 1/8' of free flowing water beneath it in places. 25 degrees F. A true worst case test, as some areas did not have deep enough snow to fill the impeller for a good throw, a prime cause of clogging in slush.

My machine has the excellent impeller kit available from DRMERDP on this forum. Highly recommended. Articulating chute mod was recently installed. Partial mod done to chute to address blowback.

I used and angle grinder to remove one half of the upper 'U' shaped portion in the new 'clog resistant' chute to address blowback issues when the the chute is cranked all the way right past 90 degrees. It helped, but did not completely cure the issue. Throwing snow no more than 90 degrees right and not maximum right "over the right shoulder" helps a lot. Here is a picture of the partial chute mod.



Just removing one half of the upper obstruction in the chute helped greatly reduce but not completely eliminate blowback. But leaving the other half intact causes drag when the machine tries to cough out slush plugs. I will remove the other half soon, as others on this forum have.

I was amazed to watch a solid 4" cylinder of slush flowing out of the machine with good throw distance when I went at a speed to keep the impeller full enough. A lot of the time when the machine clogged, by varying the forward speed, I could get it self clear and puke out a solid brick of ice/slush 10" long. Amazing for a 9hp machine. The impeller kit really works. As does running 3700 rpm, the high side of the factory spec of 3600rpm + or - 150.

BUT, when it did clog in 25 degree temps, the ice plug was solid. When I removed them I could not squeeze them out of shape by hand. And they all showed a bit of a groove from the 'U" shaped portion of the chute collar that I did not remove, shown in the left side of the picture. Another afternoon with an angle grinder and a can of touch up paint will cure that oversight on my part. Then my chute will have nothing for ice plugs to hang up on when they try to fall forward out of the chute and self clear.

Interesting note, after tossing ice plugs onto the shallow snow, the next pass chewed them all into the auger, ground them up, and spit them out the impeller without even slowing down.

As for the dual articulating chute mod, it works great, allowing you to put snow exactly where you want it. The only down side is that in heavy slush that will clog any machine, the black articulating end parts tend to pack up with snow more than the red chute does, eventually forming a blockage. That is true even with the chute positioned "full up" for minimum drag. Sharp 90 degree corners inside the black articulating tips vs rounded corners in the red chute may be the culprit here. If a little car wax and a lot of Fluid Film does not solve this issue of heavy slush sticking to the articulating chute parts, my next step will be a low friction ceramic coating such as Cerakote. If it's durable enough for moving parts on firearms, it should work on snowblower chute tips.

None of this is necessary for normal snow conditions. The stock chute works great then. Only heavy slush makes these mods worth considering. Late Spring and Early Fall snow fits that description every year where I live. And I am getting too old to shovel slush off of a long, wide driveway.

Good luck.
 
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#2 ·
Do you have any additional photos of the modifications? Understanding that you did this to your 928, I too have a 30+ year old HS55 with the tracks that I have been wanting to do some upgrades on.

You must be in the mountains. Here in the city it snowed just enough to make the morning commute longer.

Spindler
 
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