Not to jump into the party late, but on the sheer bolts; don't worry John, I learned that lesson last year, too
Had a 24" MTD blower at work and sheered a sheer pin. Well, snow storm + no time to really look into why it sheered = me using a bolt in a pinch. Long story short, it literally ended up wrapping the auger around the shaft. Had I took the 1 minute to investigate, I would have seen that the scrape plate was so worn from years of abuse (by my predecessors, wonder why they aren't here anymore
) and was actually feeding into the auger stopping it cold in it's tracks. That was a long winter.
Anyway, on the auger tube, if they fit, it may not be a bad idea to get a 2nd new one and try to fix what you have. Then when you (eventually) change over to the new style, you can do both sides at once and won't have to worry about uneven feed.
