Hello All,

Funny how time seems to accelerate as you get older. Just when I thought I was catching up with yard work it is time to start cleaning up for the fall. I had left a few things and just dawned on me that winter will be here before we know it. We are already experiencing frost here in southern Manitoba, Canada. (above North Dakota, USA)

I purchased a used snow-blower. I have wanted a snow-blower for a few years and didn't need one as I had a neighbor who would take care of the large snow banks after storms. Having moved and two elderly neighbors, I do not want to be stuck shoveling snow for hours.



The snow-blower is older. A Snowflite (MTD) 8 hp, 24". I picked it due to it being all steel construction. I looked at new units and there is so much plastic on these. When it is -30 C I do not want plastic parts breaking. This snow-blower has been sitting for 2 years so I went through it. Needs a new fuel line so I will install one this week. I had removed the covers and decided to clean it to ensure I knew what condition everything was in. Used a cheap engine cleaner to de-grease it. Muffler is usable but rough, so will see if I can find a new one. I may sand and paint a few engine covers seeing as I will have to wait till next week to get a muffler.

All in all, the unit should last many years. ( I hope)

Hope everyone is enjoy the fall, winter will be here to soon once again...

Pedro



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2014 01:50AM by pedrog.

My dad had one of those! I say chrome some engine parts and then do like the car resto guys do and clear coat the rust.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2014 02:33AM by Sal.

Sal,

Ya I think that would be a little overkill! Some basic semi-gloss black will suffice

Clear-coat rust, I say that on Fast 'n Loud episode. Crazy!

Pedro

hi Pedro,

Hope your new toy is dependable for you. I did a bunch of snowblower duty. "He who has a snowblower will inherit the neighbor's snow" - Confucius -

Guess Ive paid some dues with the hottest months, now it will be really pleasant here for about eight months.

Well - I wish you Warm gloves and good boots!

Gary

"He who has a snowblower will inherit the neighbor's snow" - Confucius. He must have been a very wise man. haha.

I will not mind if I am asked to blow snow by neighbors. Keeps the doors open for future needs and maintains friendships.

I could live without snow.When we were in South America two winters ago, it wasn't hard to enjoy Christmas without snow

Thanks for commenting!

Pedro

Looks familiar somehow...

Don't know if this is your first time owning one of these things, but here's some free advice in case it is. Better stock up on some auger and impeller shear pins now (they're usually the same part). Once the snow falls they'll be sold out at all the hardware stores and you'll be out of luck. The last snowblower we had used to go through wheel/axle shear pins pretty regularly too, but not all of them are made that way and we did run tire chains on it due to the icy conditions up here in SE Alaska. Don't try to substitute a regular bolt for the pins or you'll break something that costs a lot more, they're sacrificial in nature and if you suck up a rock that's too big to fit through the auger you want them to break before the drivetrain does.

In fact, since you're buying it used it's a good idea to remove, lubricate, and re-install all the shear pins now to make sure that the last guy didn't swap in regular bolts instead, and to make sure that they're not too corroded to remove. It's way easier to punch out a rusted pin now than it will be in the dark at twenty below at the far end of your driveway. There's also a new spray-on type product called "never wet" or something like that, supposedly super-slick, makes water just bead up and roll off. I'm gonna try it inside my snowblower to see if it can help keep the snow from sticking so badly when it gets slushy.

And one last thing, most newer machines have a set of clips somewhere to hold a hard plastic prybar of sorts, which is normally missing when you buy one used. The idea is to always have a tool handy so that you'll NEVER be tempted to reach into the auger/impeller with your hand to clear a jam. Since some engines are very hard to start in the cold, the temptation is there to keep the motor running and just reach in to snake out that pesky branch or rock that's clogging things up. Needless to say it's never a good idea, and lands far too many unfortunate victims in the hospital with some pretty serious injuries. Might want to find a replacement or gin up something similar if yours is missing.

Solid advice there! We used to wax the inside of our blower to try and keep things running smooth. Worked fantastic for dry snow but the heavy wet stuff always benefitted from horsepower more than anything else.

Rotorhead,

Thanks for the comments. I will definitely take a look at the shear pins. Last thing I need a a break down especially if we get the amount of snow as last season!

Someone else suggested I try this as well to make the snowblower throw further. Basically adding rubber paddles to the impeller to lessen the gap between the side wall and impeller.

[www.youtube.com]

[www.youtube.com]

Good advice re having a prybar handy. I do not want to lose fingers or a hand!

Thanks again,

Pedro

I remember the ice hanging off my beard. My wife's grandfather in Connecticut had an old gravely and it would chew through hard pack and keep running.

Nice timing Pedro . Now when it's still alittle warm . I use an old Bolens tractor with a dedicated blower ( shaft drive) and it really moves snow and anything in it's way . I have to rake the snow off my roof every winter so one year I was cleaning up after close to the front door at my house and mind you we have a dog we tie out front on a 20-0" nylon leash and we clip the dog latch to shock absorber that closes the screen door . Well I was to lazy to get off the tractor to move the BRITE ORANGE dog leash and got a little to close to the snow that we raked off the roof . Can you guess??? By the time I realized it the tractor died , the screen door came flying at me , and I had to get off the tractor anyways and explain to my wife at the front door ( she thought I ran into the house) why the front door was laying on snow blower in front of the tractor!!
Well we needed a new screen door anyways and at least nobody got hurt . Sooooo if you gotta doggie

Wow Kurt, that a great story with a compelling visual image. You're lucky the flying screen door didn't zip up and clock you right in the noggin, try explaining THAT one to the guys at the emergency room!

And that's a good reminder of another factor to consider about snow blowers, Pedro.

If you've got a dog that does his "business" anywhere near to where you're running the snow blower, you've got to figure out how to separate those two activities. Yes, hard-frozen dog turns go right through a snowblower with no problem, but the ones that are half-frozen and sort of "case-hardened" from the cold can gum up the work something awful. And I do mean AWFUL, especially if you have to thaw it out in the garage to un-stick the mess (don't ask me how I know).

Even if its colder than a mother-in-laws heart down there and you don't have the half-frozen problem, you've still got to deal with the mess come spring if you let a whole winters worth of "frozen treats" pile up in your snow dump area. Some of the ugliest parts of any northern city are the spots where the snow gets piled up and forgotten. They're always the last place to thaw since it compacts to glacier density in the piles, and after it finally melts you've got half a years trash and litter concentrated into those spots. If you add in a whole winters worth of dog mess, it's not a pretty situation.

Yikes, hope you weren't hurt! Going to very careful and pay attention to things on the yard when blowing that is for sure!

Thanks for sharing your misadventure.

Pedro

Wow, I got motivated to start looking at snow blowers based on this thread and the expectation of a hard winter and got another reason to not get a dog as a bonus!

Jerry,

All the best while searching for a snow-blower! There are so many online, and way more in the USA!

Pedro

Thanks Pedro. I've been looking around and apparently I need to predict the depth of the snow and if it will be powder or wet and also how much slush I might hit. If I can't do that, I'm probably going to make a horrible mistake! Yeesh, I thought they perfected those things by now!!!

The reason why they sell so many snow blowers is that the alternative is shoveling all that heavy white stuff by hand. They don't have to be perfect, they just have to be better than slogging through that ordeal. Yes, a snow plow is generally better, but there's plenty of places you can clear with a snow blower where a plow just won't work.

If you're serious about getting a good one, the tracked models from Honda are the gold standard up here. They cost accordingly, though.

[www.wisesales.com]

Wow, I could hire a team for years for the price of that beauty! I might just go back to my so far working plan of just driving over the snow with a big truck! Good thing we don't get Alaska snow here!

It has 5 stars Jerry ....



Looks slick ... Course .... I just shuffle around in Tee shirts ....

5 stars! I'll have to reconsider. Then again, I don't want to spend the whole winter just hoping for snow!

Or... you could live some place where it just rains instead of snowing all winter. Depressing? Sure. But as they say "you don't have to shovel rain".

At least with snow you only get mud about twice . Before and after . I've seen those track blowers in commercials but not in stores around here in Michigan yet . In the upper peninsula around Lake Superior I used to live in / on Iron Mountian . Some roads were so steep , we all had to park at bottom and walk up to house on ocations. We used to see a lot of deer carcasses way up in trees 15-20 ft off ground . Later I realized the BIG county snow blowers they had would fling the road kill thru auger . The snow would get so deep the deer would come out to road where it was easy to walk and graze ! But hey Sean you live in Alaska , I don't have to tell you about snow ! Hehe blowing is the only way to go unless you plow and then you have to payload it out .

Hey Kurt, I'm pretty sure my 28" Craftsman poses no immediate threat to the local deer population, but some of the ones's I've seen up in Canada look like they could cycle through a buffalo! Here in S.E. AK they use mostly truck mounted plows for road clearing, but up in the Yukon they seem to prefer giant blowers. The plows tend to be a lot harder on the guard rails, but those big snowblower really do a job on road signs, so I guess it's just down to which your road crew prefers to replace. It does make it hard to navigate the Yukon in winter when all the signs are either bent over or encased in frozen slush, I guess if you're driving up there in winter you'd better just know where you're going.

In Juneau we get a lot less snow compared to Haines where I used to live, averaging 7 to 8 feet per winter compared to 20+ feet in Haines. In fact the last year we lived there set a snowfall record, with 359 inches over the winter. That's WAY too many hours behind a snow blower, so we often had to hire a guy with a backhoe to clear our driveway. Just hanging a blade on the front of a pickup isn't going to cut it when you keep getting more of the white stuff a yard at a time, you just can't push that kind of weight without heavy equipment. Also, as you mentioned, you quickly run out of places to store it unless you have a house built on a cliff face.