John Deere snowblower questions ??

Today i picked up an older John Deere 1032 snowblower. The unit starts on the first pull and is pretty clean with minimal rust. When you put it in drive it goes with no problem but when you engage the auger there was a terrible noise like a metal grinding. My first thought was the bearing in the auger housing was bad so i removed the tractor from the auger housing. The auger turns smooth and there is no play so that proves the bearing is fine. I found that the idler pully that puts the tension on the belt when you engage the auger is mounted to a little bar that moves up and down and at the bottom there is a weld that holds it to the shaft. The weld has a crack and the idler is off kilter. The brake looks worn like it was not disengaging when it was supposed to so i think that was the loud noise. The unit seems to be like an Ariens the way it is set up. My questions are, How do i get info on this unit to find out the age ? The only numbers on it are 1032 on the dashboard and serial M01032X596536 on the tractor. I am going to weld the pully and try to bend the bar to get it in line with the belts again and replace the belts. The numbers on the old belts are worn so i need info on the unit in order to purchase new ones. I will try and get pics up this week. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

I'm sure a Deere dealer could tell you the age based on the serial number (596536) but since i'm not and assuming the engine is original, look at the engines' serial number. It will be four digits and possibly followed by a letter. The first digit of the serial is the year, the last three is the day of the year it was manufactured. YOU have to figure the decade. However, based on my knowledge of Deere serial numbers, I'd say it will be in the 1980's. Lets say you have a engine serial number 5316D, then you'd have a 1985 engine built on the 316th day of that year, most likely making it a 1986 model year machine. As for looking up parts, go to Deere's website. They have a good look-up system, it's just a little tricky to navigate at first. Once on the initial look-up page, http://jdpc.deere.com/jdpc/servlet/c...ageServlet_Alt click the model search tab, enter "1032" as this is your model, and go to town looking up any needed parts. By the way, hopefully, if you get the idler arm welded in the correct time (postion), you should have taken care of your woes.

 

I'm about 90% certain that your snowblower was built by Ariens for Deere as they had a long relationship back then. Recently, they have been built under the Frontier name by Murray. That does not mean that all Ariens parts will fit as these were built to Deere specs, but it does mean that you got a very nice high quality machine! Puey61 has given you an excellent link to Deere parts, where you can look up part numbers, have access to assembly drawings and even find out what the parts will cost at your local dealer before you go, once you learn how to navigate around. I hope you get this beauty running as good as new.

 

very nice

 

thanks for the replies. i picked up the belts today and its running great. thanks again.