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

Hi to all and thanks for all the help & direction I've  recieved from the board

My machine is an Ariens 926le.  As I get the machine  dialed in, I sitll have a few questions about performance. We are getting our second big dumping here in MN as I type this.  This time, the snow is very wet--almost slush.  In conditions like this, how far should the snow be flying?  I'm trying to make sure nothing is slipping.  When I hit about 4-5 inches this morning of very wet heavy snow in 1st or 2nd gear, it was traveling about 10-15 ft with the chute on a 45 degree angle.  We are expected to get up to 15 inches by tomorrow.   Everything is turning correctly and I hear no squealing belts or runaway, revving engines, so I think that things are all in alignment spec.  There were also times at EOD when the snow would litterally "bubble" out of the chute and begin throwing after about 2 secs.  Does this sound right?  I just don't have the experience with the snow and blowers--I'm from Texas  :)

Thanks again in advance.

Sounds like things are working OK and you are aware of the possible problems. Good job learning about it first and checking it out!. Snowblowers typically throw best when the snow is white and fluffy so you have difficult conditions.

One thing that I found was some time you can go too slow. The manual throttle is more of a Off/On switch than a true throttle. There is an automatic governor that kicks in when hte load increases. The trouble is that you have to supply it with enough load for  it to kick in. The first time I used my blower it was damp, slushy snow. The blower didn't throw worth beans no matter how slow I went. I thought I had a lemon. In frustration I upped the speed to 6 and started back towards the garage with the auger housing scraping up snow, the engine roared and the snow flew. I hadn't been feeding the snow in fast enough to cause the probably slightly sticky governor to kick in. Of you can hear the engine reving up and it still bogs down the auger housing starts to climb because the snow isn't clearing fast enough that is the time to slow down.

Try going faster, if you still bog down try going faster but taking less of a full swath. If you are getting enough of a load the engine should rev up noticeably.

Appreciate the quick response.  I  did step it up to 3rd once or  twice.  the snow thowing range was about  the same, but it left more on the driveway.  Guess I  just have to play a little more to learn the machine.  As for the set-up, it was a HD setup verified by me.  In other words,  even though the machine was set up by HD--I went through it step by step and made certain everything was correct.  To HD's credit.  It was about 90% dead on,  just needed to tight a few nuts here & there.

Thanks

Wet, slushy snow is never going to fly very far. 15' sounds pretty good to me. As long as it's off your driveway, who cares how far it is thrown.

Ack, I'm jealous. I'm also in MN and cleared the same wet slushy snow this morning (about 6 inches worth). At MOST my 8hp/24in. Murray would throw it 4 feet. Basically each pass just moved the snow a little bit further to the side of the driveway until the final pass cleared the driveway. (I've checked the belts and they are not slipping, nor is the engine bogging down). I'm thinking I might be able to replace/hack the pully system to get the auger and impeller to spin faster, but I'm not going to mess with that until spring. (I'm trying to convince myself to buy a new one but I'm having a hard time justifying the cost)

Surge,

Put Clarence's impeller kit on you blower.

Do A Google search for "Impeller kit".

Should show up as,- "snowblower impeller kit".

It will change your blower into a "Snow/Slush Eating Tiger"

Fred

Thanks for the info. Enlarging and improving the efficiency of the impeller was not something that I thought about but makes perfect sense.

I installed the Clarence impeller kit on my Ariens 1128DLE and have to say my slush pumper works great! It doesn't throw slush 45 feet but I am happy with 18-20 feet and no clogs!

Ok,  so, I am a total idiot.

I did do all the break in-procedures and adjusted everything, but apparently I forgot that after about 7 hours on the machine total, the belt might stretch a bit.  So, I pop the belt cover (engine off & safety precautions in place) and with the auger control engaged, I try to move the belt on the drive pulley to check for slippage.  And, well, it slipped like it was buttered.  SO, a quick check of the manual for clarification, mover the idler pully about 3/4 of an inch, check clearances again,  and boom,  I"m now throwing 6 inch deep snow about 40+ feet in 2nd or 3rd gear.  Drifts of 12-15, gears 1& 2, no problems.  EOD 18" of slush,  well, it's only going about 12-15 ft, so I'm ok with that. 

I bow down to those who knew the ways and power of the Ariens.  Now that it's been re-adjusted, I'm a believer.  Only thing is it is still dang hard to start.  Even when hot, it requires 1 click of choke to start it manually, or maybe I"m just not enough of a man,  nah, I got an Ariens..............

One other thing occurred to me as I also had to deal with a lot of wet snow and sluch. All the two stage snow blowers that I've seen have the impeller turning clockwise when you look at it from the operator position. That means that it throws to the right a lot better than the left since the chute isn't forcing the snow to do a "U" turn. I had wet heavy snow almost dribbling out to the left and flying about 15 feet to the right. I also have a hunch that its time to adjust belt tension again.

Yes, that adjustment after run-in can be important.