Snowblower Paddle Replacement Easy Peasy

The last two years were hard on our two snow blowers.  There were weeks on end where the blowers were used everyday if not for moving fresh snow it was to remove yesterday's pile of snow from the county snowplow at the end of the driveway.

One of our snowblowers has replaceable rubber paddles on the auger.  These get worn down from making contact with the concrete or asphalt driveway.  The snowblower will no longer scrape the snow off the surface of the driveway or sidewalk once they are worn.  After that you are basically just walking around pushing a snowblower and getting cold.

A couple of weeks ago R stopped by the garden center to see how much it would cost to replace the paddles.  The cost was $55.00 for parts and $45.00 for labor.  R hates to pay anyone to do anything mechanical because that is what we both did for a living before we retired, he as a journeyman machine repairman/hydraulic technician and me as a journeyman experimental test technician/mechanic.  So he told me to order the parts and he would take care of it when he had a free moment.  That free moment arrived this afternoon at around 3:00PM.

I found the replacement paddles online on the Home Depot site for $59.00  and used in store pick up to eliminate the shipping cost.  The paddles also come with the replacement bolts.  This is great in case the bolts you are removing are so rusted that you need to cut them off with a cut off wheel.  We were lucky and our just took a little elbow grease.  If you plan ahead you can squirt the bolts with a penetrating/rust dissolving oil a couple of days before you plan to replace the paddles. This will help loosen the rust so that you can remove the bolts.

You just slide the new paddle into the slot and line up the bolt holes.  Install all bolts and leave them loose until you have all the bolts installed, then go back and tighten them.  Repeat procedure for the second paddle.

New rubber paddles installed.

The above photo shows the worn rubber paddles that we replaced.

The entire removal and replacement took 35 minutes.

Tools used

3/8th ratchet
socket
open end/box end wrench
adjustable wrench
penetrating/oil dissolving oil 

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