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

Hello all, thanks for having me.  I bought a Toro 828 LE Power Shift Snowblower off of Craigslist and am having some issues.  Well, I assume I'm having some issues, it only throws snow about 1 and a half feet.  Granted this wet snow was a little wet and heavy, but it shouldn't have had a problem.   Both stages are spinning when engaged and I checked all the linkages that I could see and they all looked good.  My question is, what order of things should I check?  I can't find the guy that sold it to me so I'm stuck.  The motor seems like it's running OK and the it is self propelled just fine.  So any help on what to check would be helpful, I have tools and general mechanical know how.  Thanks in advance.

That is one fancy snowblower with that articulated bucket.

I would place my hand at the END of the chute to feel how much of a breeze is coming out while stationary and engine is at WOT. KEEP HANDS AWAY FROM THE IMPELLER or risk amputation. The idea behind this test is to feel if the impeller is turning fast enough. Make sure the engine is at the proper RPM at WOT.

My guesses:
A slow moving impeller may be due to a worn or incorrect belt, an incorrectly adjusted auger idler pulley, a broken roll pin on the impeller, A broken key on the engine drive shaft to drive pulley, a spring (wrong replaced spring) that is too weak to set the idler tension properly, a tight seizing impeller, a stretched, incorrect replacement or improperly adjusted auger cable.

The above are the usual suspects in a "standard" snowblower. You have special linkages
that may have problems. Do the above checks with the bucket both extended and retracted and you might learn something.

Here's the order I would check things in:

1. Auger belt tension. This is normally the problem, the rest are much less likely;
2. Make sure you aren't running the engine with the choke on, been there done that;
   
3. Make sure that the impeller does not turn when the engine is off, use a stick, don't put your hand in there. This is to make sure the auger transmission is not stripped somewhere. If the auger spin with the engine of then you need to figure out what part of the transmission is broken;
4. The throttle on snow blowers is more of an on off switch. The normal operating position is full on but the engine does not rev at its highest until there is sufficient load to cause the governor to automatically increase then engine speed. I've had cases, particularly with wet snow, where I wasn't going fast enough to get enough load to cause the engine to rev up. Snow dribbled out until I put it in a higher gear and all of a sudden the engine roared to life and the snow flew. If you can't get it to rev up when under load then perhaps either the governor or carburettor need service;
5. Check the clearance of the auger paddles to the auger housing, they don't need to scrape but if the gap is too wide then snow will get by the augers . There are paddle kits that will close the gap and reportedly make a big difference. I'm guessing that somewhere in the 1/8" to 1/4" is OK.

BTW - From what I've read the power shift models were designed for commercial usage and were quite nice. they are no longer in production.