Time for a review of sorts. I picked up the machine on Tuesday
and drove it to our cottage. There was about 6" of snow in the
driveway, most of which is supposed to be cleared by a local
service, and around two feet deep everywhere else.
The engine is a 9.5 HP Tecumseh OHV which the dealer said
would likely be guaranteed by somebody or other somewhere
down the road, for whatever that's worth.
The machine having arrived a couple of weeks late meant that
I got to set it up in the snow since I couldn't make it to my
basement door which is only accessible by a long path, the
house being on a hillside with the front up above.
Overall, given the current trend towards diminished durability,
I found the machine to be pretty nice, the assembly is good
except for a few places. But there is one glaring design fault
and a couple of disappointments.
Might as well start with the big one. For some reason Ariens
saw fit to change the discharge outlet from the impeller from
a round opening to a square one (the base of the chute itself
is round, the extra area around the square is blocked off by
a piece of plastic). I can only guess that this was to save cost
somehow, though I don't see it being much more trouble to keep
it round like it used to be. The result of this is that the
square output opening is around 2/3 of what it would be if it
were round. Given that snow being discharged probably follows
more of a circular path than a square one the effective cross-
section may be reduced further to about 1/2. This is a severe
bottleneck. (If the same opening is used for the bigger blowers
they must have real problems).
On top of this, or because of this, the lowest speed of the
machine is too fast for deep snow. You have to go forward
a couple of inches, wait for the blower to empty, then inch
forward a bit, wait, over and over. This must be really bad
for the friction disc. In comparison, my 1999 Ariens 1024
will just keep going through two feet or more of snow, even
a snowbank, with hardly ever having to wait for it to catch
up. Maybe I've been spoiled by that machine, its model name
was 1024SHO for Super High Output, which I thought was just
a marketing gimmick but compared to this machine it's true.
Odd that the auger drive belt was doubled sometime along
the way. My old machine did just fine with a single belt
(while outputing more snow). I just replaced the belt after nine
years. It still worked ok but was getting old and frayed.
On to the more minor issues. I knew beforehand that the
wheel bearings used in past models had been replaced by
bushings but I was not expecting to find these flimsy
plastics things that are no more than 1/16" thick. They
replace ball bearings that were over 2" in diameter. I
wonder how many hours of operation these bushings are rated
for.
Another bushing related thing is that the ones shown for
the pinion and sprocket are not there anymore, the sprocket
turns directly on the shaft. The same thing goes for the
short axle which is supposed to have bushings at each end
but doesn't.
The bottom panel is now held on with 6 little screws which
must be completely removed to get the panel off, and the
access to the screws isn't great if you don't first remove
the wheels. My older machine had 4 big bolts, only two of
which had to be removed, and the wheels weren't in the way.
Others have already mentioned that the wheel axles are prone
to rust. This is in two areas, the first between the wheels
and their axles, and the second between the axles of the axle
assembly which is made up of one long axle that goes from wheel
to wheel passing through a shorter axle on the right side.
There was a bit of grease inside the wheels, not much. There
was no grease at all between the two axles (inside the short
axle), which are bare metal. Any rust in there would make
taking the axle assembly apart impossible. Putting things
back together I thoroughly greased everything which made
putting the axles back together a bit difficult since the
grease tends to prevent the pieces going together (hydraulic
lock). Lightly tapping with a plastic hammer helped here.
The locking differential seems to work as intended but it
had a tendency to shudder a bit when locked, though this may
be due to insufficent pressure on the friction disc, I did
not get a chance to re-check after using the machine a while.
There is some resistance from the differential on tight turns
compared to the older non-locking differential.
Another thing, the fingers (sort of a comb) that the speed
lever slides into are pretty narrow. I can easily imagine
one of them breaking which would have the result of losing
a speed, with no easy way to fix things without replacing
the entire control panel sheet. Or else you'd have to
attach a second comb on top.
Some good points, in conclusion : the chute rotation is
really nice and easy. The control mechanism for this is
pretty tricky the way it unlocks and locks automatically
before and after rotation. The rotation is only about
180 degrees which is less than my older machine. There
are occasions when it is nice to be able to throw the
snow slightly behind you, like when you clear a path to
the street and want to keep the snow going onto your
lot and not into the street at the very end.
The output of the blower for anything less that a foot
or so of snow was fine. Everything works well though
you have to be a bit careful changing speeds on account
of the lever not being round but a flat piece of steel
instead.
I used the machine for about four and half hours, mostly
blowing old snow between one and two feet in depth. It
will probably be a joy to use in less deep snow.
You have to replace the engine oil after the first two hours
of operation. I wonder how many new owners actually do this.
The oil was a clear pinkish when new but was a dark enough
brown after a couple of hours.
One final thing, if you put the snowblower into service
position (standing on the auger) for a long time the engine
will leak quite a bit of oil from behind a small panel on
the left side of the engine, when you start it up. This stops
after a while with the oil loss not being that significant.
I'll post more if I think of anything else.
A big thanks to those of you that pointed out that rust
could be a problem if not dealt with. I'm sure that this
has saved me a lot of headache a year or two from now.
Paul
This message was modified Dec 9, 2008 by pvrp