Before last winter I picked up an Ariens 1028 with the AX414 (20 ft/lbs) engine. It has been awesome until tonight. About an hour into the snow cleanup, it sounded like the engine revved higher than normal for a second, like small engines sometimes do when they start to run out of gas, but it wasn't out of gas. After that, it was sluggish and seemed down on power. It was bogging in 8-10" of fluffy snow, where normally the revs would barely drop for such a small amount of snow. Also, with the engine speed turned down and idling while I brushed snow off the cars, the idle seemed erratic. Also, normally when under load as soon as you disengage the auger, the engine speed will jump right up, but it seemed it like it was taking longer than normal for the engine speed to recover.
Sometimes it would come out of it and run great again.
It's 10 degrees F and the snow is light and fluffy and blowing around, creating basically whiteout conditions. I don't think its a problem with the actual engine, since it ran fine sporadically. It seems more like a throttle linkage or fuel problem. May some ice built up somewhere and was hanging up the throttle linkage?
I looked it over the best I could without taking all of the engine covers off, and didn't notice anything abnormal. I've got it near heat right now to try to warm it up and get rid of any ice that built up.
There is a storm coming Saturday and then a BIG one Monday, I really need to get this thing working right!
Sometimes it would come out of it and run great again.
It's 10 degrees F and the snow is light and fluffy and blowing around, creating basically whiteout conditions. I don't think its a problem with the actual engine, since it ran fine sporadically. It seems more like a throttle linkage or fuel problem. May some ice built up somewhere and was hanging up the throttle linkage?
I looked it over the best I could without taking all of the engine covers off, and didn't notice anything abnormal. I've got it near heat right now to try to warm it up and get rid of any ice that built up.
There is a storm coming Saturday and then a BIG one Monday, I really need to get this thing working right!
