G. Post Hole Digger Auger Repair

So they asked if I could dig the holes with my tractor if they found a good post hole digger. I agreed that I would but they would have to wait until I had my tractor working again. I was still working on the lift.

The normal sized post hole digger auger digs much too big a hole for the anchor pipes they needed to install. After seeing the bent auger on their donated machine and the number of holes they needed, I volunteered to help. I had a very old vintage post hole digger that no longer worked. it had a small 4" diameter auger that I felt could be attached to their digger.

The 4" auger was the right size to dig the holes for the hoop house anchor pipes. I would need to salvage about a foot of their bent auger to make it work. They agreed to let me try it. So, this is what I did.

I cut part of the auger screw off the bent auger to get to the upper section of the auger pipe. Then I cut the bent section of the auger off leaving about a 12" straight piece to the gearbox coupler.

I had to cut the auger off my old digger since it was welded to the collar it was mounted in.

The collar fit very nicely into the 12" section of the other auger pipe.

I re-welded the collar to the small auger.

Then I drilled three holes in the 12" auger pipe and slid the collar into the pipe and welded it at the holes I drilled and around the bottom of the collar.

Now we had an auger to fit their digger that was the right size for the job!

Friday afternoon we tried it out to see how well it would dig. The very first hole it hit rock and the auger got stuck in the hole. The lift could not pull it out of the ground. The gearbox was getting pulled into the ground as the auger turned. It was stuck!

So, we used a long 4 x 4 and some large wood blocks to pry it upward while turning the auger. Thank goodness that worked, or we would have had to dig a very large hole over 3' deep by hand to free the auger.

We dug the rest of the holes on that side of the hoop house, but hit solid rock at about 25" deep on every hole we dug. The auger dug great in dirt but would not go into the hard rock. Maybe the other side will be just dirt?

We will get back to it after the weekend, but they will have to decide how to address the shallow holes.