Good evening or good morning everyone I finally got my snowblower out because I bought the Yarbo primarily for this purpose. Despite a few minor issues with the original blades, which were sent back by Yarbo, and the problem with the antennas breaking or the RTK malfunctioning (everything was fixed quite quickly, congratulations Yarbo!!!), I tackled the snow I struggled a bit with the program, but overall it went really well However, what I’m quite disappointed about is that when there’s 15cm of snow or heavy snow, the shear pins jump right out at me ;-( Seriously, you have a great motor and a super machine that can handle it, but why undersize the shear pins??? Or is it the entire machine, after the motor, that’s undersized?
Could you tell me what I should do? Considering the price I’m paying… It costs me to replace at least two sets of shear pins every time; it would be cheaper to hire someone to clear my driveway!
I even went over it three and four times with my tractor to be absolutely sure, but no, a little too much snow or even water makes the shear pins pop out ;-( Now I’m out of shear pins, so I’ll have to order more ;-( Have any of you bought slightly sturdier shear pins? Or is it just me having this kind of problem??? Thanks everyone, and happy snowing!
I haven’t had any issues with the shear pins. This is my second season with the snowblower. We get quite a bit of all kinds is of snow and ice, Buffalo NY area. I havent broken a shear pin yet. Maybe I’ve just been lucky.
I’d open a ticket. This doesn’t sound normal unless you have hard ice or gravel getting stuck in the auger. Drop your ticket number here so the forum admin can follow up on it.
I will caveat that the shear pins are pretty pricey. They really should offer more for the cost. I appreciate they doubled the amount from last year but the price also went up too.
Had to buy shear pins at the end of last season. Snow was gone by the time they arrived. Replacement parts should be in the US, BTW!
Now I have done 2 snowblows and blown through all 8 pins in the packet and am out again. All on the right hand side of the blower as you face it. Never broke the left hand side. I suspect they have not done QC in the batches they have in replacement. These are undersized OR just plain crap. Not acceptable for either the kind of system they promised OR the cost of the replacements. Just submitte my first complaint submission of the season. We’ll see if I hear from them.
You may have something obstructing that right side, like that side is bent a bit maybe? There can be some play on the sides and mine made some ticking noises when one side was kinda bent and the auger was hitting a bolt.
I have used mine quite a bit over 2 winters and the only time I’ve broken a pin is when I steered it into some 2x8s. I got a lot of extras but never used them. They do seem weak-ish, but seem to work.
Since your pins are now broken, you can do a quick experiment. For safety, power down your Yarbo before you begin.
First, remove the broken pins completely from the auger.
Second, remove the GOOD pins from the other side of the auger.
Try spinning either side of the auger with your hands. Do you notice any difference in resistance or any odd sounds from either side? The auger should spin freely.
Let us know what you find. Cause it sounds really strange that you’re breaking pins on that one side so frequently.
As I have gravel driveway I know all too well about changing the pins.
Last year I took one to the shop what specialises selling bolts. They recommended me 8.8 strength size 5 black bolts. Length of it was 30mm. Those are accompanied with M5 nylon locking nuts. I bought full box of both. Have had to install 3 so far. One to one side and two one to the other side. So only have managed to break one. Works like magic.
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I definitely checked for clearance, I’ve done a ton of troubleshooting on this unit AND the orignal mower deck (not sure how much MORE time I spent mowing this summer becuase of that stupid design.)
Anyway, there is nothing bent of artificially obstructing the auger. This thing has like 4 hours of use on it. Sorry, probably more like 8 hours, but the other 4 hours is it sitting still waiting for me to come and get it unstuck again.
The first snow I had I stopped using the Yarbo, thinking it was unfair to allow the unit to go out and try to tackle this big job, so I cleared it with my tractor. This snow, I tried it again, it got stuck, I cleared 90% of it and left the remnants you naturally get with a FEL and IT STILL COULD NOT NAVIGATE or clean that up. Less than 2” on the ground with piles that might be 6” tall at times.
It CAN go just fine down my lane at times, but I’m not sure if I have ever seen it come all the way back once. This is plainly rediculous and I don’t know why it is.
Ohhhh… Good troubleshooting thought. I shoudl have thought of that already. However, now I can’t do that becuase I don;t have any shear pins left. ha! I do know the augers both spin freely when there are no pins in as I DID do that part. BUT, I went and put the old pins back in the same location. That was dumb.
I have read enough times that gravel is not where you want to use this device. Is anyone having success on gravel? I rarely get to gravel becuase my therory is leave an 1” or so on the ground and let it freeze, then clesr off what is on top theory of gravel drive clearing.
What I would say is stupid is this is getting stuck too often becuase it digs into that surface OR, it gets itself stuck becuase it is not clearing 1/2 of its auger intake area becuase of these stuipd pins that I can not figure out why they are breaking.
Between this and the original mower (pro seems much better) I am spending MORE time doing the things that I bought this unit to do FOR me. Very dissapointed in the results.
I have gravel and I think that is my plan too. Take it down and let it freeze and keep it 1-1.25 inches. I tossed some gravel yesterday Soda cap size.
Didn’t break a sheet pin though.
Yes, I use this on gravel only. And no, it doesn’t do great until there is a frozen base (nor does my manual snow blower). The other thing I had to do last year was the early runs were all at the highest setting. Then each subsequent snowfall, as the temps got colder and the base got better, I was able to bring it down 1/4 to 1/2 inch each time.
By the end of the season, I was pretty far down, though on average, it’s 0.94” and works great 90% of the time. Like Sex Panther, 60% of the time it works every time.
Yep. One bolt was broken. I have the blower at 2cm (0,78 inch) hight and it doesn’t really pick up rocks. On the sides where it does the zero turns, on those parts it digs up the some smaller gravel rocks but it is been fine so far. The original pins where way too soft to efficiently work on the gravel surface.
I don’t live permanently in the location I have the unit set up so can’t realistically assume that the soft pins will allow Yarbo to finish the snow cleanup before It is running into some trouble. That’s the reason I have 20kg (44lbs) extra weight added to the tow hitch. Without this extra weight it did get stuck more then half of the times it was trying to rescue itself driving backwards. The front is in original setup just too heavy and once reversing the back side lifts and then 75+% of the tracks are in the air and Yarbo just digs itself too deep and bottoms out. That’s my experience at least from last year. Extra weight is with my experience the only way this thing can realistically achieve clearing snow autonomously.
I finally got my snowblower out because I bought the Yarbo primarily for this purpose. Despite a few minor issues with the original blades, which were sent back by Yarbo, and the problem with the antennas breaking or the RTK malfunctioning (everything was fixed quite quickly, congratulations Yarbo!!!), I tackled the snow