I've got a Deere 338 snowblower for the front of my lawn tractor. Pretty simple belt driven setup. When I put it away this spring it was running fine, but when I hooked it up this fall I have a rattle in the snowblower I can't chase down. The best description I’ve got for it is that it’s really similar to the noise you get when you are snowblowing and hit the plow berm at the end of the driveway. The berm usually has smaller chunks of ice mixed in to the snow, and you can hear those chunks ping around in the snowblower before they get shot out. It’s that sort of rattle/knock/pinging noise that I’m hearing. Load has no impact on the noise – it will do it both when I’m sitting still with the blower running and when I’m actually blowing snow.
This is a pretty simple arrangement. There is a belt pulley at the center of the blower, with a drive shaft that runs to the side of the snowblower. The shaft’s in a sleeve, with bushings on both ends. There’s a gear on the other end of this driveshaft with a chain on it that drives another gear on the shaft of the snow blower auger. The noise is coming from the area where the chain is on the side of the blower.
So far I’ve tried this to try and chase the noise down. Pulled the driveshaft. I cleaned it and re-greased it. The bushings didn’t feel sloppy so I didn’t do anything with them. The gears on the chain drive part were not parallel, so adjusted them to where they were parallel. I’ve adjusted the chain tension – the book calls for 1/8 to 1/4 inch sag. I’ve cleaned the chain and re-lubed it with chain lube.
I’m at a loss here and would appreciate any ideas. It sounds like something is popping around in there that could fly apart at any second. Is this chain noise, or what else could it be? I’ve not heard anything quite like it before that I couldn’t pin down to something loose.
This is a pretty simple arrangement. There is a belt pulley at the center of the blower, with a drive shaft that runs to the side of the snowblower. The shaft’s in a sleeve, with bushings on both ends. There’s a gear on the other end of this driveshaft with a chain on it that drives another gear on the shaft of the snow blower auger. The noise is coming from the area where the chain is on the side of the blower.
So far I’ve tried this to try and chase the noise down. Pulled the driveshaft. I cleaned it and re-greased it. The bushings didn’t feel sloppy so I didn’t do anything with them. The gears on the chain drive part were not parallel, so adjusted them to where they were parallel. I’ve adjusted the chain tension – the book calls for 1/8 to 1/4 inch sag. I’ve cleaned the chain and re-lubed it with chain lube.
I’m at a loss here and would appreciate any ideas. It sounds like something is popping around in there that could fly apart at any second. Is this chain noise, or what else could it be? I’ve not heard anything quite like it before that I couldn’t pin down to something loose.