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

How many of you have added an hour meter to keep track of the hours you have on your machine?  Is this a useful addition.  I was reading the oil thread when I thought of this.  I know my Father put one on his ATV and it is useful for "knowing" not guessing when to change oil.  I just haven't seen or heard of many people doing this with their snow machines.

Rick

Where can you buy these things? When I was looking at the honda snowblowers they had an hour meter you could buy through them for, I believe, 49.95 but I haven't seen anyone else having them for sale.

Northern Tool has them.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/NTESearch?Ne=1&Ntt=meter&Ntk=All&storeId=6970&Ntx=mode%20matchallpartial&N=76

I bought the combination tachometer/hour meter.  I like to be able to see what rpm the engine is turning.  Lets me know if it running at optimum speed.  Bought mine at Jack's Small Engines.

http://www.jackssmallengines.com/hour_meter.cfm

I put an hour meter on my Ariens, fastening it to the flat surface of the panel just below the light. It is the type with a wire that wraps around the spark plug wire. I think I got it from Sears.

I should have known that you guys had this base covered already.  So do most of them attach to the spark plug somehow?  I also noticed that some had a temperature range in which they operated the best.  One that I looked at only went down to 14 F.  It gets colder than that in Wis.  Rick

The unit I have is unaffected by temperature, at least to twenty five below.  That's the coldest it's seen so far.  All that has to be done is to wrap the free end of the wire around the spark plug lead.  I fastened the other end of the unit to the panel using velcro.  I can lift off the tach to use it for testing other equipment if need be. 

Thanks!

I am going to order one of those up right now.

borat wrote:

borat wrote:
You are really tempting me to put another gadget on.  Do they have one to measure oil temp?  I'm thinking of putting a speedometer on this thing.  Hehehe.

EDIT: I wouldn't order this one. It appears to be for installation into a dashboard. I was looking at unit up on SenDecs website.

I don't know if this one has Tach but this model made by same company is $21.99.

http://www.mfgsupply.com/m/c/32-10408.html?mv_pc=Froogle