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Snowblower auger belt guide

1.6K views 25 replies 8 participants last post by  Shaw351  
#1 ·
Hello recently I made a rough guide that I put inside my snowblower for the auger belt

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As you can see its not perfect but its not square so im wondering if that could be the reason my belt started to make a sound as if it was trying to jump off, and my suspicion was confirmed when I removed the cover it almost looks like it wants to jump out when I let go off the lever.

The reason I added the guide was due to the snowblower making a squeak whenever I depressed the auger and it did from day one brand new snowblower… obviously this is from the belt itself slipping but the guide I added barely did anything at all and as I am writing this I am starting to think the sound it makes when it tries to jump off the track is due to the guide I put in not being parallell, but at a slight angle… I also put the guide very close to the belt, 1-3mm away from the round part on the top in the picture.

Perhaps I need a beefier piece of rod or from some model that I can put inside..

the new belt I bought today is slightly smaller than the original which slips but the cashier told me the original wasnt really worn out or damaged by the looks of it. Will try the old one again without crap homemade guide tho…

Would appreciate any advice with putting guide inside snowblowers, also mine had a plastic bulg as a guide from the cover itself (poor design) but its completely worn out, not that it even helped with the slipping..

Thanks for reading👍🙂
 

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#6 · (Edited)
Make a second one and put on left side. Adjust belt so they are not touching when auger lever is depressed.
I made my own guides on almost all of my custom machines. This is from my frankenblower project, can see build in my showcase.
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#16 ·
If I did this correctly here are two videos of what I'm talking about. My frankenblower setup and a machine I converted to 5/8 belt.

 
#23 ·
Test





First link and second link is without any guide used, in all of them, the belt seem to wobble regardless as seen in the video. So therefore I removed the previous guide on the left side (picture below)
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So the belt wobbles enough to touch the guide on the left while holding the auger, therefore I removed it.

in the second clip, I just slightly tighten the wire for the auger handle, and this seems greatly reduce the second sound when I let go off lever, still squeak on depress tho.

On the third clip I added a new guide on right side, where it should come from the plastic cover, but it is worn out so I added finger guide, and it seemed to work slightly.

To now fit the new guide in place, I will need to slightly modify the plastic cover by cutting it, which is not a problem at this point or I could make a metal part inside where the plastic bump was for the plastic cover, as seen on another post here.

Appreciate any advice thanks.
 
#24 ·
The squeal that's annoying you is really a normal effect of belt clutches. Personally I don't mind it because the brief aggressive engagement will prevent it from ever becoming glazed. If you'd rather not hear it simply engage it gradually. Shaw's advice for setting guides is of course correct but when I set up a machine I set the idler so that it only backs tension off enough to allow the belt to slip, and just a touch more. There's no need for the belt to ever have more slack than that. No other guides are necessary.
 
#26 ·
After looking at your pictures & videos... it appears you have a red metal belt finger / guard on the right side of the machine already. I would put the finger back on the left side and adjust.
I would also recommend when engaging & disengaging the auger you should slowly & smoothly push the lever, not fast & abrupt.
 
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