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

People seem to have different opinions on this subject.Does shifting gears while the snowblower is moving,do any damage to the friction disc or any other component?Ariens says it's o.k.,Toro says not to.Isn't the friction disc setup the same on all snowblowers??

In my 826oe user manual it doesn't explicitly state not to shift while engaging the traction lever.  It just states to release the lever and then shift. 

I think this is to keep it simple and not confuse customers.  The only way to have a negative impact on the friction disk if someone shifts between forward and reverse speeds without coming to a stop first.  But if you shift between forward speeds, or only between the backwards speeds you will be fine.

There is also the risk that the lever might "slip" into the wrong gear and start going into a direction the user was not expecting (or a speed that wasn't expected).  By keeping the two actions separate Toro is covering their behind in terms of safety.  We all know that there are idiots out there that can find a new way to get hurt.

At least that is what I think.

I think in my (Ariens) manual it says its ok to do. Whatever it says I can't see how it could be bad. There just is not enough friction in the POS fricktion slip drive to cause any harm. I think more damage is being done when the POS fricktion slip drive slips and you  DONT GO NOWHERE.

  BUT... I used it today and it behaved with bucket high fluffy  snow.

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If you shift on the fly then you are rubbing the rubber edged friction wheel across the friction disk, it will cause some extra wear but not too much. How significant it is is a personal decision. I am cutting back on my snow clearing to about 5 driveways. Before that, while doing ~20 driveways 6 to 10 times a year, I would go through a friction wheel every one to two years. I generally didn't shift on the fly but it did happen occasionally when I was in a hurry.