Proper RPMs for Snow Blower Engine?

A good coat of wax will also help speed things along. Just like eating a bunch of Fritos.

Ted

HaHa chortle snort!! I was given a Lee Valley State-of-the-art windshield scraper by a well meaning friend.His face fell off his head when I said "I am going to open a bar in Central America andI will hang this 'thing' over the bar. Anyone who can correctly identify it will drink free for the night!! I am in Central America as I speak and I am looking for the location for said bar. On another note I showed up in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada in March in my old van. The gas jockey was plumb confused by the mess of bugs smeared on the front of this vehicle. "Oh yah" said I, "just came back from Costa Rica". Ya had to be there!

My neighbor had one of those old beasts, and it had the same problem. Not being too handy, he asked me to take a look at it. I found the fuel/air mixture was way off. The adjustment screws on the carb had backed out over the years. After adjusting the carb, cleaning the air filter and changing the spark plug, it was tossing snow as far as it ever did. I would be careful with messing around with the governor. My brother blew the motor on his Ariens by running it wide open. OTOH, I adjusted the governor on my lawn tractor and have had no problems. Now I can mow the lawn at around

Dan

Agreed - and do not mess with the governor settings until all other settings have been used to obtain 'original' power. The carb settings that worked when the unit was new usually are far off the mark after a couple of hundred hours of operation. Is this unit equipped with points ignition? Dump that system if it is and go with an after market electronic system if possible - otherwise get the ignition system 'on spec'- AND THEN tune the carb to try to achieve the original rpm/power. This is for a four stroke engine only!! Tuning for power with a two stroke is a totally different beast. Hope this helps. Ken.

First off, getting 40 years out of one of these engines is a small miracle. Chances are the engine is at the end of it's string and is due for retirement. Common problem: The valve guides are simply bores in the block and when worn will cause a lack of power even though the compression feels good. Pull the head and rotate the crank until a valve is at full extension and then see if you can wiggle the valve around. It will be real obvious if the guide is worn. To repair, the guide is reamed and then an oversize valve is fitted.

Oh, yeah: check the muffler. A rotted or non-OEM muffler will cause all kinds of running problems.

But, just in case, here's how to adjust the flyweight governor on a horizontal-crank Tecumseh:

With the engine off:

You may also need to dial in the carb, which is likely a Carter N:

-Carl

Lots of those old beasts still tossing snow up here in Ontario. I retired one last year (had sold it to a neighbour some years back) when a valve jammed and the camshaft broke. It was a 1973 Ariens with a 5HP SnoKing. I'm still using my1970-ish Canadiana 5-26. Had a governor problem 10 years ago that took a rod bearing out of the first engine. Got my hands on a low hour used engine and installed it one awful miserable cold and windy January afternoon, and managed to damage the pulley in the process. I brazed it together and it lasted until I threw the belt last Thursday. Lost the part this time, so I pulled it off, brazed up a gob where the part was missing, and turned it back to shape on the Myford.

I worked for an Ariens dealer in the late sixties and their stuff was VERY well built back then.

Jeff, why do you even bother with such a pissant little bit of snow?

Pffbbttt. I was here for the Hallowe'en blizzard of 1990: 28 inches in Mnpls, 34 inches in Duluth. Trick or treat!

I just got an alumni magazine in which a guy recounted walking to class from Trailertown thru crotch-deep snow in Houghton, MI. We got well over 200 inches of snow one year I was there. The record is

They got 118 inches (9.8 feet) just in December that winter.

There were houses up around Calumet with second-story porches with no stairs to the ground. I figured they were back doors during the winter. Yoopers don't worry boud a liddlebit snow, eh?

Yoopers are folks that live in Michigan's UP -- upper peninsula. . Houghton is about midway up the Keewenaw Peninsula which projects north into Lake Superior from the Upper Peninsula. Perhaps Keewenaw is the upper peninsula of the upper pensula.... eh?

It was fun listening to a highschool basketball game on the radio because of the preponderance of Finnish names. "Kivisaari to Ruotoniemi, over to Maki, now to Ahola, pass to Kuivanen, HE SCORES!: I enjoyed that because I'm half Finn, heard endless arguments about politics between my mother and grandfather that I didn't understand much of because they were conducted in Finnish. About all the Finn I recall anymore is "sit down", "bad boy", "good girl" (that for my suckup sister) and "be quiet" when I loudly objected that Ma had been snookered by suckup sister. Ooh yah, and "Merry Christmas".

The autumn color is so spectacular on the Keewenaw that Michigan Tech declares a holiday on "K-day" so all can go enjoy it.

and you walked 10 miles to school one-way and

Barefoot

Paivaa, Don I was surprised to read you are a Finlander too. With a good Finnish name like Foreman I should have known. When I was growing up in northern Minnesota, Finn was spoken daily but now is seldom heard. I still remember about 50-60 words but I never could string a sentence together. I started making some ethnic signs and have welcome in 8 different languages now. Tervetuloa is the Finn version. I have some posted on this Yahoo photo page

Nakamiin, Steve Peterson

Paivaa, Steve.

Gunner (Ojala)

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

- John Stewart Mill

Hyva Paivaa Sven!

My middle name is Sirola. My grandfather's name was originally Suuronen but he got tired of hearing it mispronounced so he changed it to Sirola.

Neat signs! Our neighbors at the lake, of Norwegians heritage, have a sign on their road that says "Halvorson Hytte" which we're told means "Halvorson little house (or cottage)". I've wanted to make a sign to put on our outhouse that says "Shytte Hytte" but my wife doesn't think it would be a good idea....

You've undoubtedly heard the story that December 6 is Pearl Maki day in MN? That's the day Pearl Maki got bombed in Two Harbors....

I wonder if Pearle is any relation to Supermaki from Wolf Lake. Now that is the place to get bombed. (I say as I sit up sipping a rum and coke alone at the puter New Years Eve) The breadwinner is in bed already as she has to work tomorrow. It is really interesting how people open up and talk about the old days and their roots when they see my ethnic signs at shows. The funniest was when a younger guy and his girlfriend were looking at the Polish "Witamy" sign and the guy said "Who would want a Pollack sign?" The shocked girl said "Me cause I'm Polish". The guy looked like he could have crawled in the nearest hole. Happy New Years to you guys! Steve

An' it was so slippery we had to turn around and walk the other way 'cause for every step we took, we slid back two. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

I live on one of the busiest street in our city, during the fun snow filled months of Wisconsin the city plow come by often enough to keep the end of my driveway filled with snow, that rapidly turns to slush. Anyone that's had to deal with this wet heavy snow knows that even the best 2 stage snowblower will moan an groan and struggle to throw this stuff anywhere. I've purchased three new snowblowers over the years hoping more powerful engines would help, but no luck.

I consider myself lucky if half of the time the snow just pours out of the chute enough to keep the engine running. As you can imagine after spending a considerable amount effort and swearing at the snowplow driver every time he makes another pass, I've concocted a number of extreme ideas that range from targeting the snowplow/driver with various contraptions (or weaponry) to designing an elaborate hydraulically operated metal shield that protects the end of the driveway when the snowplow comes by and then catapults any remaining snow across the street into my neighbors driveway (or back at the snowplow..must most likely that cop that watches me to be certian not a flake of snow is lands back in the street)

However rational thought usually takes over and I figured this group might have some good ideas about how to modify my snowblower to better handle slush. I've tried painting, polishing, waxing and even spraying non stick coating on the inside of the chute with no great success.

Perhaps I should build a chute out of stainless steel? PVC or other plastic? Should I try to make a different size pully for the auger/thrower assembly (bigger/smaller/lighter?) Nitrous Oxide for the engine? Add more blades the the wheel that "throws" the snow?

Sure in 20 years, I'll retire to Arizona, but for now I need to figure something out before a snowplower driver ends up a statistic.... :-)

The best "slush pump" I ever owned was an old craftsman single stage blower from the late sixties. It was an 8 HP 26" unit if memory serves correctly, and it weighed a ton. It had a single speed drive and beaters that turned so fast you could not see them.Threw the wet sloppy stuff very well.Not vey good when the crap froze, though.

I assume that your machines are self-propelled, with speed set up for "normal" snow up to the height of the auger. That means that when you charge compacted snow, you are feeding it a lot more material than it is designed to handle.

One solution would be to change the sprockets/pulleys to give slower speed over the ground, thus feeding it more dainty bites of snow. If you are really ambitious, you might look at "cone" pulleys, so a quick swap of the drive belt from one drive ratio to the other gives you a regular speed and a creeper speed. If your "clutch" is a belt tightener, this might be pretty easy.