I’ve got a QA42A mounted on a 1450. My best friend’s father bought it new in 1978, and I acquired everything in the late 1980s after he passed away and his widow moved to a condo. Believe me when I say I know the machine’s history and can say that while it has been used hard, it hasn’t been abused too badly. Every year I lubed everything, checked the set screws, adjusted the chain tension, adjusted the skids, rotated or replaced the cutting edge as needed, and made sure that the drive belt pulley was still lined up with the PTO. The only things that ever let me down were the sprocket-side auger bearing that shredded itself maybe 20 years ago, and early last winter the drive pulley key somehow disappeared while I was dealing with about 14” of heavy wet snow. For too many years I cleaned 6 driveways every time it snowed. Stuff happened, I met this cute young lady, got moved in with her and her folks, and for the past 8 years I’ve been cleaning about 1000 feet of driveway every time it snows. Snow here in SE PA tends to be wet and heavy. During the last snow of last season I sheared the Spirol pin in the transfer shaft. That was the first time in all the years that I’ve run this machine that that happened. A few weeks ago I started digging into what needs to be serviced and got a bit of a shock.
- The auger needs to be straightened where it looks like I hit some ice (Spirol pin issue?).
- The sprocket teeth are pulled and bent.
- The drive chain has been stretched.
- The keyway in the transfer shaft is chipped and causing rotational slop on the driveshaft.
- The keyway in the gearbox output shaft is wallowed out causing more driveshaft rotational slop.
- The gearbox output shaft bearings have excessive lateral movement.
The good news is that the driveshaft keyways and u-joints are nice and tight, the gearbox was still full of serviceable grease, and the gears in the gearbox look pristine.
I usually refer to myself as a “cheap engineer” and don’t like to pay anyone to do something that I can do for myself. I do manage to keep lots of old stuff running, but for this I’ll have to farm the auger sprocket replacement out to someone since it’s the welded version, not the one with the replaceable sprocket/shaft assembly. The snow blower is old and worn, it has earned its keep, and I don’t really have any sentimental attachment to it. I know that no matter how much I put into it in terms of parts and money and effort that it’s never going to run like something new. So, my question is…. is it worth the time and money to fix a 40 year old QA42A with the problems this one has? I’m just not feeling it. Would anyone else commit to fixing this if they had another snow removal option?