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

Last year I bought a John Deere 1130SE snowblower and for the most part I was extremely happy with it's performance. I love the hand warmers, electric chute rotation, easy steer and the front end weight just to name a few.  The only problem I had, which was pretty significant, was the intermittent transmission slipping.  After sealing the transmission housing with silicone and some weather stripping, the problem was completely gone.  The remainder of the winter was very pleasing and I always looked forward to using the 1130.  I also had a second snowblower that I'm trading for a new 1330SE.  So now I'll have the 1130 and the 1330.  The 1130 will be for my business parking lot.  Some of the interesting features of the 1330 is the addition of an electric deflector control and dash area integrated headlights.  So now the chute is totally electric (both rotation and the deflector).  The slipping transmission should be resolved from water getting into the rubber/aluminum disc drive.  To fix this problem, Deere added a rubber gasket between the engine mounting plate and the transmission housing.  I'll try to post some pictures in the future.
BTW, my second choice would have been an Ariens since they seem to give people on this website support from at least one poster.  I wish Briggs, Simplicity or Deere would give the same support.

aa335 wrote:

My wife says I need snowblower intervention.  My excuse is that I take care of my business snowblowing and my home.  I don't think she's buying the excuse.

Here's my list.

Two Toro Power Clear 180 (One at home and one at work)
One John Deere 1130SE (work)
One John Deere 1330SE (Home)
One John Deere 322 garden tractor with 46" snowblower


Next year I think I'll sell one of the Toro 180 machines and try a larger Toro single stage.  Maybe a 221QE or I guess I'll go with one less snwoblower.

Catt wrote:
It's a little premature for intervention at this point.  I don't see any Honda, Simplicity, Ariens, Yamaha, or Toro on the list. 

The PC180 doesn't count as a Toro.  :)

aa335 wrote:
You're right!  I had Simplicity until just recently, but I may need to try out a few other brands.

I made a set of skids like that a couple years ago.  Depending on the thickness of flat bar added to the bottom, adjustability will be compromised.  You may not get the scraper bar as low as you'd like.  On the  other hand, you will get far more wear and as the flat bar wears, the scraper bar will slowly be lowered.  For some reason, the added footprint of the modified skids seem to cause handling issues.  The machine seems to want to pull more from side to side.  I suspect it's due to added resistance/friction when one skid hits bare pavement and the other isn't.  The stock skids have a much smaller footprint and don't grab as much on dry pavement. 

Catt:  Please let me know  if you experience the same handling issues.   

borat wrote: I never thought about the potential handling issues and I'll definitely let you know.  Regarding the scraper bar... I use my 2-stage for all of the larger accumulations followed by my Toro 180.  The Toro works great cleaning the drive down to the asphalt.  The paddles on the Toro are almost like a squeegee.  For very small amounts of snow I just use the Toro.  I started doing this last year and my drive and sidewalk  never looked better.  I guess if the new skids don’t work, I’ll just raise the originals even higher.

I think that a better skid modification would be to weld the flat bar parallel to the skid with the edge of the flat bar being the riding surface.  Grind the ends of the flat bar to shape it to allow it to ride over irregularities.   That way, you'll have plenty of wear material and much less of a footprint to cause resistance.  I'll have to get another set of skids if I want to test that theory.

I finally got a chance to break out my 1330 to tackle the Long Island blizzard of 2010. I had it running for about 2 hours and think it's GREAT!.  I will have to get used to the way the Easy Stear System works as I have never had that before.

The only way I would improve on it is to move the chute controls a little bit closer to the end of the handles. I prefer to walk with my hands at the very end of the handles, putting the controls a bit out of thumbs-reach.

Other than that, this thing is a monster. What would take me 40 minutes with my smaller Craftsman, literally, took me 12 minutes, leaving plenty of time to help dig out the neighbors...

I also bought the "fuel gauge/filler cap" which worked well, and the roller-skids (thumbs-up)

When I reported on my new 1330SE on December 12th, after my first chance to use it, I commented on a few "bad" impressions that I had, in addition to several good things. JohnWI had some astute observations about each of my concerns, and they've all virtually evaporated over the last couple weeks. At this point, after assaulting record snow for any one month in southeast Minnesota, I'm a full fledged fan of the big green beast. It sounds like the whole northern half of the Country is getting pummeled already this Winter; but here's what December looked like around here:

Dec 3-4: 9 inches of snow

Dec 10-11: 16 inches (the first snow for my 1330SE)

Dec 15-16: 6 inches

Dec 20: 6 inches

Dec 25: 5 inches

As you can imagine, the piles just kept getting higher; but the beast made easy work of clearing the snow plow mounds and opening access to the mail box. Those were major chores with my old John Deere 624. It's been great to have the power to launch snow out of the way on a single pass, rather than having to re-blow snow that my old machine couldn't throw far enough to completely clear our wide driveway. I think my disappointment in the Easy-Steer feature stemmed from the fact that turning after that first snow storm required pushing 16+ inches of snow latterally with the side of the bucket, and was no fault of the split (open) axel. Either I"ve gotten used to the strength of the drive lever or it's loosened up some; because I really don't notice it much any more. What I do notice is that my hands don't get cold, I don't have to yank a rope in the tight confines of my garage to get things started, I can change blow directions with the push of a button, and I can launch snow as far as I need to.

 If we've got to deal with record breaking snow falls, it's great to have a blow beast that can handle it.

Catt, could you please tell me if the handle bars on the 1330SE are height adjustable? Jason

producerboy wrote:
Sorry that I didn't respond earlier.  The height of the bars isn't really adjustable.  The cables for the drive / auger and gear selector wouldn't work if the height was changed with the existing design.  Height is certainly something that you should evaluate as only you can determine if it's acceptable.  For me it's pretty good, but depending on your height and arm length it may be acceptable or unacceptable.