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

FWIW, I bought my 1st 2 stager - Honda unit - without ever demoing a unit that had Hydrostatic Transmission.
Just short of the fact that it's variable infinite speed, can anyone just give me a laymens primer on the benefits of a Hydrostatic Transmission ?


BTW, how often if any do you do a OCI on the hydro transmission.

I was just surprised how much ~harder~ is is to move when not engadged as opposed to ~regular~ geared transmission.
I was at the local orange borg last night and wheeled the Organge buckets around and they wheel so much with ease...

An interesting observation....I've moved the HS724 plenty of times with the engine off/transmission disengaged.

There was a link to a video on youtube that showed how *productive* one could be with wheels when just going straight, pulling the unit backwards in one heap, then make another forward pass,  rinse and repeat.
I guess to do this on the Honda, it's not easily done in this fashion due to the hydrostatic transmission.

Just yearning for more info, to get a better idea of the pros and cons of various things while figuring out what are the best methods of importing ~old blue~ back stateside.......

chefwong wrote:
I'm sure if you want to, you can rig a bicycle brake lever to that transmission to make it easier.  That might be worthwhile with the wheeled unit, I wouldn't do it on track unit since it's still quite a bit of effort to move it.

Also, another method to try with your wheeled snowblower is lift up the rear and put more weight on the skids when pulling back.  You can let the wheels glide over the thin layer of snow.

Try them all and see which method works for you.  Your 724 is a pretty lightweight and being wheel, not track, may be easier to do.  Us people with tracks snowblowers have no choice but just have to flick the speed selector lever forward and reverse.  :)

Good luck on getting ole blue

1. The hydrostatic drive has the variable speed forward and reverse like a joystick for one hand control.

2. Hydrostatic has no cable stretch issues and no friction disc to clean or worry about water getting in causing slippage like on the John Deere of 2009 before the new seal kit.

3. Below the unit is a release lever to disengage the transmission to roll around with the engine off. Apparently the person complaing about moving it didn't switch the release.

This high technology cost more but the payback is in ease of use and the elimination of service calls and repairs that everyone is paying on the pressure plate design when your not handy and can't fix or clean it yourself.

PS I saw the comments on Subaru all wheel drive. The A3 transmission is 80% front wheel, 20% rear wheel. The slip correction doesn't occur unless you tap the brake to tell the computer to check the slip differential. The demo on how this works was on a film of a Subaru going up an icy ramp. To make this work in the snow you must take the car out of "D" for over drive and put it in "3" for driving in snow to increase 4 wheel drive ratios and automatic corrections.  The newer models may be different but I know most cars even my Caddy tells you to take it out of "D" and puty  in "3" and there is a special button that looks like a snow flake. From talking to people about this 99% never read the owners manual and always leave the car in drive "D" until after the accident and they read about it or get informed.

 Drive safe, drive smart.

>>>Drive safe, drive smart.

Drive back to New Jersy.

trouts2 wrote:

Or New York   trouts2 wrote:

trouts2 wrote:

+1

Will the real David step forward?

I would say that the biggest advantage of the hydro drives. Is that under any conditions you can match your forward speed to your blower through put capacity.  That fact that you can slow the forward speed down to a little more than a creep under certain conditions.  Is a real plus in my opinion.  I've noticed with my re-powered 1032 Arien.  That I need a little slower forward speed or a little higher through put under maximum snow load conditions.
That would be a full 32" cut with a snow depth to the top of the bucket.  The engine doesn't bog and only drops about 3 to 400 rpm.  But I sometimes have to pause for maybe 2 seconds for the blower to clear part of it's load.
That is the beauty of the hydro trans.  If I had one I could back it down just a little and keep the blower at max through put without over loading it. Matching your forward speed to the snow load is how you achieve maximum snow clearing performance for any blower.  If you move to fast for the load. You lose rpm and everything slows down.  Forward motion and blower through put.
 

jrtrebor wrote:

This may not be relevant but I find that the drive engagement lever in my Toro can be used to creep forward if i just lightly push down on it. I would imagine Ariens would do the same. I only have to use this when I get near the hidden rocks but it does work.