Erskine Snowblower

UP Oliver

Member
I have an Erskine Sno-King 3 point snowblower. I bought it from a school along with a tractor and I had seen the combination in action and the snow really flew out of this machine. It had to have been going 20 to 25 feet high and landing at least 40 feet away

Shortly after I got it I used it and it didn't work well at all. The snow only ended up going a few feet away from the snow blower. Well, it's many years later now and I still have the same tractor but I used my Oliver 1755 the other day and I could get the snow to go 3 feet in the air and ten feet away if I had it over 2000 RPM.

I have some questions.

1. The tractor that I bought with the snowblower has 540 and 1000 for the PTO. The guy that used it told me he always used 540 PTO, but I just can't believe that. He said the last time he used it it worked fine. The manual I have says it's a 540 gearbox, but I wondered if there's a chance he could have been using a 1000? I have to believe that would ruin the gearbox?

2. Is there any chance that the impeller is slipping, or the gearbox is slipping?

3. I was watching a few videos, it looks like a lot of people fill the gap between the impeller and the housing with various materials. Can anybody tell me what the gap should be for a properly operating snow blower?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Check your shear bolts.

While it may be tempting to run your blower at 1,000 RPM, it's not advisable. Quick way to burn up the bearings.

Is the blower properly lubricated? That could also have an effect; albeit less severe than shear bolts.

Lastly is the snow conditions. Wet/sticky snow will not blow nearly as far as dry powder. And while your blower is in operation, if the temps are only moderately cold and the snow is powder on the ground, if going through heavier amounts, friction will warm the snow to a wetter/sticker consistency.

I had an older JD blower on a JD 4010 gas and it would blow fairly well. Even in -30 temps, snow would warm a bit and stick to the augers, sides, even the chute. Was minor at those temps, but still noticeable.
 
3. The proper gap should be zero. That's hard to achieve with solid materials like steel but a piece of rubberized belting screwed to the edge of each "paddle" will accomplish this and make the blower more efficient.

Yes the impeller may be slipping. Put the snowblower into a pile of sticky snow. It it doesn't plug, that isn't the problem. If it plugs. wait until the snow melts out before fixing the problem because digging it out will be very difficult.

Using 1000 rpm on a 540 gearbox is likely to lead to heating. How long of a period will you be using the blower at each use? 10 minutes, not a problem. 10 hours? Don't even try it.
 
I have a Schweiss snow blower takes an 8 ft. cut. The gearbox is rated at 540 RPM with a 1000 RPM coupling, works great never had a heating problem with the gearbox.
 
I would wonder if the PTO clutch was slipping more than the impeller slipping. Most shear pins I have dealt with either turned or not under load. If it has a slip clutch it could slip. If rules for snow work like a chopper or silo blower. The clearance would be as tight to the housing on the end of the paddles without hitting should work fine.
 
What style of erskine blower do you have? I used to think they only built this type, 3 point hitch drive ahead blower, cousin has one. Google the brand name. Is the blower rusted or in need of a good wax job?
Untitled URL Link
 
That can just be the snow too. Thin light snow won't blow far. To get maximum range the tractor is going to have to be working pretty good. If there is only a few inches of light snow there isn't enough weight to blow far.
 
I may be stating the obvious but a snow blower needs real slow speed to work well, overloading will cause the problem you mentioned. Second thought is- wet heavy snow , compacted snow and outside temperatures have a lot to do with blower performance, above freezing temperatures make the snow heavy and prone to plugging the blower, real wet snow and compacted ( driven on or end of driveway snow plow windrow) add load. If you want to try running 1000 rpm pto on this blower I would try it running quite a bit under rated engine speed for 1000 rpm and see how it works. Unless your impeller is badly worn I would avoid adding material as you may tend to shear pins or break things if it picks up gravel or a little sod. I would also check to be sure that your pto clutch isn?t slipping.
 
Thank you for all the responses. I appreciate them all very much.

I have used this snow blower in all kinds of snow conditions, and it has not worked well in any of them. And I have used both tractors for cutting and baling hay and never had a problem with the PTO on either one. Whether or not that's more stressful than blowing snow is something I guess I just don't know.

I have to apologize, I cannot find anywhere in my manual where it actually says that the gearbox is rated for 540. After thinking about it some more I remember talking to a gentleman at Erskine, he was the one that told me to use 540.

There is probably at least a half inch gap between the blades and the housing, so that needs some work obviously.

This snow blower is an Erskine Sno-King model 840R. It is old, someone wrote 1985 on the manual. So there is some rust, maybe I do need to wax it.

The only way that the tractor and snowblower could work the way I saw it many years ago was if this operator had it at a 1000 RPM. I can't believe that the blades have rusted so much that a half an inch of the metal is gone sitting in my field. But I'm sure he used it like that for hours, because he had to clean a big parking lot.

I think that answers all the questions. I guess I have some more work to do.

Thanks.
 
Are you running at the PTO speed? I believe that a Oliver 1755 needs to be at 2400 rpm to achieve the correct PTO speed. In the post you indicated that you were turning at 2000 rpm it might not be enough.
 
Thank you for the response. Unfortunately my RPM gauge is not working right now, but from past experience I am pretty sure it was over 2400 RPM. I was near full throttle.

Thanks.
 
(quoted from post at 02:45:09 02/08/20) I have an Erskine Sno-King 3 point snowblower. I bought it from a school along with a tractor and I had seen the combination in action and the snow really flew out of this machine. It had to have been going 20 to 25 feet high and landing at least 40 feet away

Shortly after I got it I used it and it didn't work well at all. The snow only ended up going a few feet away from the snow blower. Well, it's many years later now and I still have the same tractor but I used my Oliver 1755 the other day and I could get the snow to go 3 feet in the air and ten feet away if I had it over 2000 RPM.

I have some questions.

1. The tractor that I bought with the snowblower has 540 and 1000 for the PTO. The guy that used it told me he always used 540 PTO, but I just can't believe that. He said the last time he used it it worked fine. The manual I have says it's a 540 gearbox, but I wondered if there's a chance he could have been using a 1000? I have to believe that would ruin the gearbox?

2. Is there any chance that the impeller is slipping, or the gearbox is slipping?

3. I was watching a few videos, it looks like a lot of people fill the gap between the impeller and the housing with various materials. Can anybody tell me what the gap should be for a properly operating snow blower?

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

ASSUMING this is a typical Erskine 2-stage snowblower, they blow snow like a son of a gun, even when about worn out and beat almost to death, you have something wrong besides rotor clearance, a stripped key, a sheared pin, gears, etc. or maybe BADLY mangled fan blades.

The "fan" on snowblowers of that type NEVER runs at 1000 RPM.

If the fan shaft passes straight through the gearbox that drives the auger(s) without a change in speed, it's a 540 RPM PTO blower.

1000 PTO RPM blowers are set up so the speed to the fan is reduced in the gearbox.

Easy enough to check out.

NO need to worry about "burning the bearings out" running a 540 machine at 1000 RPM's, in most cases the fan will be unbalanced enough to shake like he77 once the tractor is revved up much over half-speed, and you'll realize something's wrong LONG before you "burn out" any bearings.
 
Thank you very much for this information.

This is a double auger 2-stage thrower.
From what I can tell from the parts
diagram, the shaft goes right through the
gearbox. The fan blades are not in the
best shape but they are not what I would
call badly mangled. I had wondered about a stripped key, but I will check all that
out.

What I saw years ago was what you
described pretty well when you say throw
it like a son of a gun. I'm hoping to get
it in that condition again soon.

Thanks again.
 
(quoted from post at 14:21:04 02/08/20) Thank you very much for this information.

This is a double auger 2-stage thrower.
From what I can tell from the parts
diagram, the shaft goes right through the
gearbox. The fan blades are not in the
best shape but they are not what I would
call badly mangled. I had wondered about a stripped key, but I will check all that
out.

What I saw years ago was what you
described pretty well when you say throw
it like a son of a gun. I'm hoping to get
it in that condition again soon.

Thanks again.

If you can get someone to operate it while you watch it in action, it shuld be easy to see if the "fan" slows down when snow enters it.

Also note if the "fan" is running in the correct direction to match the "scroll" shape of the housing.

NOT sure what could have gotten changed, but if turning the wrong way they don't work well!

Is this a "front-mount"? if so, some units use an "odd" roller chain drive configuration at the back to reverse/correct the rotation. NOT sure if Erskine ever did that.

This involves using an idler or two and running one sprocket on the backside of the chain.

On the odd chance yours has a drive like that, someone could have installed the chain incorrectly.

Here's one version of a rotation-reversing chain drive, the "green" sprockets are the idlers:



I4NoBhF.jpg
 
Thanks again.

This is a three point drive backwards
snowblower. I got this thing probably 15
years ago, and as I think about it more I
seem to remember that I may have tried to
operate this thing when the impeller was
stuck in a good amount of ice. I noticed
that a little too late obviously. So I
wonder if the key is broken, although I'm
not sure I understand why it would work at
all in that case. I've been trying to
avoid having to take it apart but I think
it's inevitable that I'm going to have to
do that.

Thanks again for all the good information.
 
Take a look at this one. Why is 1000 rpm not desirable when available? Not trying to start anything here, but it looks like the safety sticker on the side
could show a bunch of people in danger!
Untitled URL Link
 
Thank you very much for this post. This is an eye-opening piece of information for sure. That's exactly what my blower looks like, except it's a 7-footer not a 9 footer. And on my blower the bottom auger is like the top one in that picture. The two I have are the same.

I don't know if you read all the posts on this topic but one guy here said if I put the thousand PTO going it wouldn't take long and I would realize that's not what's it supposed to have. another guy said if the shaft through the gearbox is continuous then it's meant for 540. From what I can see in the parts diagram that is the case. I haven't used the thousand PTO on my Oliver yet, but from what I remember from a few years ago the hookup in that picture is what I would be using.

Quite a mystery here.

Thanks.
 
How deep is the snow you are blowing? If only a couple inches the machine isn't full enough to blow any distance. 6" or more should keep the blower full enough to do a good job. As shown in the video when it runs empty it doesn't do a good job of blowing.
 

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