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What did you do to your Snowblower today?

100K views 474 replies 123 participants last post by  WVguy 
#1 ·
Although it is not snowblowing season. There are a lot of us that do repairs, maintenance, upgrades or mods to our snowblower(s) during the off-season.
I have been thinking that being this a forum for snowblowers it was missing what I (IMHO) consider a very important thread (this will not be intended to follow the progress on the work being done but merely limited to what was done to the snowblower this particular day), so i decided to start one. Mods if you think that this is repetitive (considering that some of it will be progress on work being done at other threads) or should not be here, please feel free to delete it.

I will start:

Today I was able to start the engine on my Toro Powershift 1332, it is quite loud and stuck at WOT regardless of the throttle lever position.
 
#4 ·
i went and got spare belts and shear pins for the new to me ariens, cleaned up and painted a few spots of surface rust, greased the auger zirks and looked for any other lubable spots i may have missed. still have to get rid of some of the fuel in the tank so i can stand it up and remove the belly pan for inspection and lube in there.
 
#7 ·
I bought 3"x6"x6' box steel to start fabricating an adjustable add-on to the existing ATV stinger to run from the likely too narrow 48" Kimpex 13HP Honda powered ATV snowblower under the 6x6 Ranger UTV to the back where I plan to weld-up some sort of a releasable attachment which I plan to be part of a 3-pt. hitch.

But, the hitch on my 1950's era Dodge pickup bed trailer failed and came off the hitch ball going over a speed bump this last weekend, so my attention has now been redirected to cutting off that stupid A-frame bale-type hitch and extending the too short (too easy to jack knife backing up) tongue with 3" box and welding on a BullyDog hitch.

I am slowly learning how to work on things, but not in the order I planned.
 
#11 ·
pumped most of the fuel out of the tank on the new to me ariens so i could stand it up on its snout and remove the belly pan. was hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. quite happy with what i found ! no need for anything other than a clean up and lube. in the service position i did see it had a carb bowl drain plug, so when i set it back down, i pulled the plug. was somewhat surprised to see the " silt" that came out. not sure if its from fuel lines breaking down ( 2010 machine) or just an accumulation of very fine dirt from a jug.
 
#13 ·
Serviced it, touched up the bare metal (gravel driveway), drained the gas (took FOREVER), oiled the cylinder, and put it away for the summer. I also learned the hard way about how tricky it is to get the oil out of a tracked Honda without making a mess.
 
#14 ·
I usually put a funnel at the drain to get the oil to go on a container instead of the body and even worse right on the tracks. I also drive the opposite track of the blower on a 2x4 so that it is on an incline and I am able to drain most of the oil. :smiley-confused009: :smiley-confused009: :smiley-confused009:
 
#15 ·
So I chained the oil on both my ariens 1032 and my toro 824, put in some non ethanol gas to store them, and figured out how change a torsion spring on the auger control.(plan to answer my own post on this subject). Just need to figure out reverse on the 824. For once I thought, let's fix this now, instead of while it is snowing.
 
#16 ·
The past several weekends, I've been working on getting the rusted on wheels of my Powershift 824 off of the axle and cleaned up. They are rust-welded on the shaft, so I was forced to cut the shaft in pieces and take them into work and ask the maintenance supervisor nicely to see if he could help me out.

He had his guy throw them on the lathe and bore out the shafts on both wheels to the proper diameter and then gave me a 3' length of 7/8" steel bar to fab up a new shaft. So yesterday I spent a couple of hours measuring, marking and drilling 1/4" holes for the klik pins and roll pins. Everything lines up nicely, so now I just need to cut the bar down to size and sand and paint it black so it doesn't rust again. Oh, I also need to weld/epoxy the gear back on too. I've been looking into getting a 27 tooth gear with a hub and set screw instead, but don't know if it's worth the time and money.

I'll tackle the wheel repaint at another time.
 
#19 ·
I added 2 more to the herd, Yamaha YS624 (tracked) with electric start and an Ariens 1236 (that blower looks really big). :smiley-confused009: :smiley-confused009: :smiley-confused009: :smiley-confused009:

I'll post pictures when I get a chance.
They are still loaded on my brothers minivan. :icon-hgtg: (that is what I have been using lately for my hauls).
 
#22 ·
Over the weekend, I was finally able to get the driveshaft drilled out and painted and then mocked up with the wheels, washers, and new hub/gear all lined up. I opted for the hub gear with set screws so I didn't have to monkey around with epoxy or welding, and this makes it easier to take things apart in the future if need be. The only thing that I didn't realize is the hub now makes it a really tight fit for the plastic guard that mounts on the swing arm and protects the gear and chain from water and ice. Oh well, it was partially broken already so it will now just rub a bit. Not like it's going on a 5 mile march anytime soon.

I think I'll just let the wheels in their rusted state for now, as I don't care what they look like as long as the machine does it's job. Maybe if I sell it then I'll throw some paint over the rust.
 
#29 ·
the carb throttle shaft is stuck in the full throttle position from gasoline that is starting to create varnish- break the shaft loose w your fingers - then run the unit with some stabilizer in it- THEN drain / run the carb entirely dry of fuel (as best possible ) to avoid a relapse - THEN just wait for the next snow season to arrive - less than 160 days away (+/-) LOL
 
#31 ·
This was actually 2 day ago....

Added 2 more to the herd:
Yamaha YS828TE (tracked unit with electric start)
Yamaha YS624T (tracked unit, mostly disassembled at this point)

:smiley-confused009: :smiley-confused009: :smiley-confused009: :smiley-confused009:
 
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