QA42a blower - correct police

[mpatterson]

Gearbox on a QA42a, is it supposed to be painted or left natural aluminum color?

 

[Allenpatterson]

That's a good question! What are the odds? My older brother and I just had that discussion yesterday wondering the same thing and if some gearboxes did come painted from the factory?

 

[1811Cub]

The ones I have seen were mostly natural with some overspray

 

[digger]

Gearbox on a QA42a, is it supposed to be painted or left natural aluminum color?

One manual,

Another manual,

 

[mpatterson]

So I take it this would be a grey area?

That's my issue - I have one that is painted white on the top side, natural on the bottom. The other blowers gearbox isn't painted at all. So does this mean I should buy another one to see if we can get one that is totally painted and then I have at least one that is correct?

Another question - were all the blower gearboxes sent out with IH on cover or did someone rob this cover from a tiller gearbox? One blower has an IH cover, the other isn't stamped with the IH. My tiller gearbox has the IH stamp on its cover.

 

[kmcconaughey]

All of the ones that I own or have owned were natural aluminum. That list includes, a BB36, three QA42, two QA42A and a Dexter Sweepster with a PO modified QA snowthrower gearbox and mount. All have been natural aluminum.

 

[PACub100]

I have 2 QA42A's and a CW36 and none of mine are painted either...

 

[cmiller]

I have a QA42A, and mine is not painted.

Perhaps they had intended to paint them, but then dropped the idea as a cost savings. .... Somehow a pre-production or mock-up one accidentally made it into the instruction manual photography studio

 

[Don McKee]

There would be more cost savings if you painted everything as a unit.

If you are installing something on a freshly painted unit you have to be careful not to scratch up the paint too much. Too much paint damage and the customer is not going to be happy.

A more likely explanation for the unpainted gearboxes would be that the wrong gearboxes had been installed and they had to be replaced with the correct unit. A less likely explanation was that there was a delay in getting the gearbox so they elected to build the blowers and install the gearboxes later. But then you'd have to store the incomplete blowers somewhere which would just be an additional cost.

 

[cmiller]

Good thought, Don. But applicable only if they were shipped assembled. It might have been expected that the dealer would handle that.

Certainly the main plate would not have been assembled to the two side plates because they had to allow for dealer set up for either wide-frame or narrow-frame (bolt holes A or B as shown in the manual ).

Does anyone know they whether they were shipped with the gearbox mounted to the plate?

 

[kphill]

After working on manufacturing assembly lines, my guess is that gearbox was an outside vendor part and when it came into Louisville it went straight to the assembly line and was installed after everything was painted. I used to see that everyday..

 

[hydroharry]

All the gearboxes I've seen were not painted. I believe Kevin's thought above is the most likely explanation. Over the years I've seen some covers with the "IH" emblem stamped into steel, some steel covers without the IH stamp, some aluminum covers with "INTERNATIONAL" molded into them and some that say "INTERNATIONAL DANCO". So I suspect DANCO was the source for the gearboxes.

 

[snicklas]

We have a QA42A and a QA36A, and both are unpainted. Actually, all the right angle gear boxes we have are, or were unpainted. The 3 Tiller mounts we have were all natural. One now isn't because it was installed when Dad repainted the tractor years ago. So instead of the normal, IH White steel mount "hitch" and an unpainted gearbox, it is all IH Federal Yellow.... I think there a pictures of it floating around on here somewhere. The other 2 mounts are white/natural.