Auger Repair — Post Hole Augers & Grain Augers

There are two very different augers on most Iowa operations, and they die in the same two places: the spiral and the drive. The post hole auger on the skid steer or three-point quits pulling itself into the ground. The grain auger in the yard gets slow, noisy, and rough on the grain. Both of them end up here, because auger repair is one part hydraulics and one part fabrication — and this shop does both under one roof.

Ames Hydraulics handles the dirt side and the grain side for farmers, contractors, and fence crews across Central Iowa. Trailer it in to 210 Freel Dr in Ames, or use our free pickup and delivery within 60 miles — a drive unit or a boring head fits in a pickup bed, and a full grain auger rides our trailer.

Auger Repair for Both Sides of the Farm

Same spiral, different worlds. An earth auger fights rock and clay; a grain auger fights its own miles of corn. Here’s what each one typically needs.

Post Hole and Earth Augers

The telltale sign is an operator leaning on the machine to force the bit down — a healthy auger screws itself into the ground. Most post hole auger repair traces to three things: flighting worn until the outside edge is a knife blade that won’t carry spoil, teeth and points gone dull or missing so the bit can’t cut, and hex or round drive shafts twisted from slamming into rock at full torque. We replace teeth and points, build worn flighting edges back up with weld or replace the flighting outright, and swap twisted drive shafts. On the drive end, the planetary units and hydraulic motors that spin the bit come in leaking or weak — we reseal them, go through the bearings, and chase the hydraulic side back through the hoses to the machine.

Grain Augers

Worn flighting on a grain auger steals from you twice: capacity drops, and the extra clearance beats up the grain it’s supposed to move gently. Add tubes worn thin or dented at the intake end, drives that leak, and hydraulic motors that get lazy, and you’ve got the standard grain auger repair list we see every fall. We replace worn flighting sections, patch or replace tube sections where the steel has worn through, reseal and re-bearing the drives, and swap tired hydraulic drive motors. The goal is simple: full capacity, smooth grain flow, and no breakdown at the dryer in the middle of harvest. The smart timing is right after the bins are full — send the auger in over winter and it goes back to the yard ready, instead of failing the first week of next fall with a line of wagons behind it.

Flighting Replacement — The Signature Fab Job

Auger flighting replacement is where the fabrication side of this shop earns its keep, and it’s the job that makes an old auger new again. We measure what matters — shaft size, outside diameter, pitch, and hand — cut the worn flighting off the shaft, fit new flighting, and weld it out with a technique that keeps the shaft straight instead of warping it into a corkscrew. Lightly worn flighting can be built back up with weld along the outside edge; flighting worn deep past that gets replaced, because stacking weld on a knife edge is a band-aid, not a repair. Either way the auger leaves here with a full-diameter spiral that actually moves material.

Gearboxes, Planetaries, and Hydraulic Drives

The drive end is where auger repair overlaps with the hydraulic work we do all day. Implement gearboxes come in with leaking seals, rough bearings, and worn shafts — we go through them and put them back tight. An auger gearbox that’s been run low on oil will let you know at the worst time, so if yours is weeping, winter is the time to send it in. Planetary drives on earth augers get resealed and re-bearinged. Hydraulic drive motors that run slow or weak get diagnosed properly instead of guessed at, and we build replacement hoses on site. If the machine spinning the auger has its own cylinder problems, our hydraulic cylinder rebuild bench is ten feet away.

Worth Fixing, Priced Up Front

Almost always, yes. Most auger repair costs a fraction of a new unit — new flighting, fresh teeth, a resealed drive — and the repair goes back stronger at the wear points than the original. The exceptions are rare, and when we hit one we’ll say so before any work starts instead of after. You get a straight price before work starts. The fastest way to that price is a text: send photos of the flighting, the teeth, and the drive to 515-292-2599 and we’ll tell you what we see the same day.

Auger work is one branch of the attachment repair we do for skid steers and loaders, and if the tractor powering the three-point unit needs attention, it’s one trip for both. Ames Hydraulics, 210 Freel Dr, Ames, IA 50010, Monday–Friday, 7AM–5PM. Whether it’s a post hole bit that quit biting or a grain leg’s worth of tired flighting, that’s auger repair we treat as everyday work — call or text 515-292-2599.