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

The official product description for our snow thrower: Jacobsen Homelite Imperial SNO 826 eight HP Heavy Duty Two Stage Snow Blower with Electric Start and 4 forward speeds with reverse. My description: old, orange and until today, started every time.

Picked this up on craigslist this past summer from a retired mechanic who'd taken decent care of it and recently had replaced the electric start. Started and ran fine at that time and has worked fine for three snowfalls. Tried to fire it up today to no avail -- electric start does nothing and the cord is stuck like the engine is ceased. Oil was fairly recently changed prior to purchase and is full -- no leaks detected. Fuel was added about a month ago. One thing I neglected to do this time was close the valve between the fuel tank and carb before parking it. Was running fine when I last shut it down. Could the engine be shot? We've had a good cold snap, so cars are starting slow too -- no clue if the temp would affect this. Thanks much.

Sounds more like something is frozen. If you can warm it up enough so any ice melts you might get lucky. An engine seize up normally happens while the engine is running and then decides to seize up on you.

If it turns out this is the problem, try sweeping all snow off the unit before putting it away.

If it turns out that the engine is seized then its not to hard swapping in a new engine as long as the output shaft diameters are the same size. I blew the engine on my 10.5HP and decided to get an 11HP to replace it. Turns out the shaft diameters change to 1" at 11HP so I also had to get new pulleys. Not a big deal but added expense and running around. The mounting hole patterns tend to both be  punched in the chassis.

Good luck.

Thanks for the reply -- thought I'd follow up about what actually turned out to be the problem...

When in much warmer weather, the engine still wouldn't turn, I attempted to turn it manually with a wrench. Finally the electric start motor popped off. It had rattled loose and caused a jam so that nothing would turn. I removed the electric start (looks OK) and will try to replace it in warmer weather. For now, it's starting just fine again with the pull cord.

Here's the next thing though: We had a big, wet snow yesterday in Minneapolis and one side of the auger (noticed by my brother in law) would stop turning the minute it hit snow. Turns out it spins freely on the axle -- the other impeller, which turns and functions just fine, is bolted on by a screw. The "spinning" side looks like it should be bolted on too as there is a hole for a one, it is missing, hence the free spinning. My question is this: should the impeller by bolted on at all, or should it be welded on? The bolts seem an odd way to secure the blades -- was it a "fix" by a previous owner?

What your are seeing is a missing shear pin or what can also be called shear bolt.Basically its a safety in case you run into solid ice or even a frozen news paper under the snow instead of busting apart your gear box the shear pin brakes off and then you have a free turning auger not being driven by its solid shaft on the inside.Alls you need to do is line up the hole of the inner and outer shafts and use a nail of somewhat smaller diameter and hit it out with a hammer or in your case the nut got lose and it fell out thereby leaving you with the open hole.Now go to your local small engine repair shop and buy the correct shear bolt made for your machine and your good to go.Do not put in a regular screw instead because if you hit something hard again it will not protect you.

The other thing to do is to use a grease gun and inject grease through the grease nipples then rotate the augers by hand so that the grease is distributed. Do this a few times so that you have lots of grease between the drive shaft and the auger axle. This helps stop the drive shaft from rusting to the auger axle.

As far as the starter motor is concerned its just a matter of tightening up 4 bolts. If any of the bolts holes' thread are stripped then it gets trickier. I've had the same experience, for better than 99% of the time I just use the manual start.

&amp;lt;BR&amp;gt;&lt;BR&gt;<BR><SPAN CLASS="quotedmessageheader">nibbler wrote:</SPAN><BR><DIV CLASS="quotedmessage">The other thing to do is to use a grease gun and inject grease through the grease nipples then rotate the augers by hand so that the grease is distributed. Do this a few times so that you have lots of grease between the drive shaft and the auger axle. This helps stop the drive shaft from rusting to the auger axle.&amp;amp;lt;BR&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;BR&amp;amp;gt;As far as the starter motor is concerned its just a matter of tightening up 4 bolts. If any of the bolts holes' thread are stripped then it gets trickier. I've had the same experience, for better than 99% of the time I just use the manual start.
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Nibbler,Good call except you forgot to mention to Grease them when the shear bolts are not in thats the only to spin them.

I don't know what happened before:<BR>Nibbler,<BR>Good call except you forgot to mention to Grease them when the shear bolts are not in thats the only way to spin them.

hirschallan - Looks like your html commands are being interpretted as text.

I reread my comment and you're right I did sort of assume that you would do the greasing before replacing the shear bolts. Makes it easier to rotate the augers and its cheaper since you don't have to replace the bolts again :-).

Thanks -- the bolt explanation makes complete sense and I will pick up a few to keep on hand. The grease tip is helpful too.

The engine is pretty easy to start with the pull cord, so I won't be too upset if for some reason I am unable to reinstall the electric start.

Next thing I need to work on is the chute (sp?). At its base, the only thing holding it against the gear that rotates it are a few bolts/washers that it looks like someone added at some point. They're just loose enough to allow it to turn, but as you can imagine they rattle loose and frequently need to be tightened.

Three possible solutions:

1. Lock washer - problem is I keep loosing them; or
2. Lock nut - This looks like a regular nut but it has a plastic O-Ring in it. When you thread it on the bolt the plastic deforms and makes the nut very stiff to tighten or take off - problem they're basically use once; or
3. Use locktite - it basically glues your nut to the bolt. There are several levels, some more permanent than others, can be removed with acetone ( nail polish remover).

If you are a belt and suspenders sort of person do two or three.

Nibbler: All great ideas -- I think I even have some Locktite of the waterproof variety that should work for this. We're getting dumped on here in Minnesota today, and the blower has been working pretty well. Thanks for your various tips.