Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

I have a Snapper SE5203E 5hp 20" single stage snow thrower that is about 10 years old. The last few years I have noticed that it is getting steadily worse at throwing snow. Last week we had about 10 inches of the white stuff drop on us here in the Madison WI. area and it didn't like that at all. It will work fine for a while as long as the snow is not that heavy than all of a sudden the snow just fills up the shoot and doesn't go anywhere. Even when it is throwing the snow it has a fraction of the distance that it used to have. The motor seems to run fine and never stalls or sputters. In fact it usually starts on the first pull.

Last year I replaced the belt. The year before I replaced the auger flighting. I have also adjusted the auger clutch cable with little or no help. In fact right now I have the cable adjusted as tight as it will go and the machine still stops throwing.

Any help would be appreciated.

Jeff  

Apparently I have to spend some time making sure everything is sealed up better than it is. I've never heard of RTV sealer but I will look for it the next time I'm at the farm supply store I like to go to.

I did go ahead and order a new idler pulley, only because it looks easy to change and it only costs about $10. The auger pulley was around $40 so I'm going to hold off on that until I see what effect the other repairs have first.

 I also was able to fix the electric starter. Because it was never used the gear that turns the flywheel was rusted stuck. So after spraying a 1/2 a can of WD40 and beating on it for a while it now works. I still plan on replacing the pull rope if I can figure out how to get it into the recoil mechanism.

By the time I'm done I could go into the snow thrower repair business!

Jeff