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

Well tomorrows the test.  I live in Michigan right on the lake and were getting that storm tonight and tomorrow.  So I expect to wake up to at least 9 to 11" of fresh powder. Ya Hoo...
I repowered my Ariens 1032 with a 11Hp Honda clone (Greyhound).  With the intentions to install a larger blower drive pulley.

Last summer I rebuilt the impeller by adding weld to the end of the blades to decrease the clearance. Lined the blower and impeller housing with stainless steel. Replaced the auger bushings and impeller shaft bearing. The only thing I didn't get a chance to do.  Was to replace the auger shaft bushing setup with flange bearings.  I ran across a pair of 3 bolt flange bearings at an auction.  The bearings were
the right size bore. And the flange looks like it may have the same bolt pattern as the current bushing flange.  Probably won't mess with that change over till spring.
 
I have been using the blower with the stock double groove pulley (2 1/2" drive unit 2 3/4" blower drive) to see how the impeller blade mods. worked out.  Then yesterday I went ahead and installed the larger blower drive pulley.  It's a 3 1/4" pulley which is 1/2" larger than the stock pulley. (by the way I'm now using to separate pulleys not a dual groove)  That should boost the rpm up to 1300 from 1100. 
And increase the tip velocity speed of the impeller blades from 4026 to 4762.
When I started it yesterday and engaged the blower there was for sure a different sound to the blower.  Reminded me a little of the sound of the Honda 928 I had for a while. Sounds like a blower fan.  But with a six bladed 14" impeller it has a deeper sound rather than a whine.

There is a real noticeable difference in the speed of the augers.  Which is good because I have noticed an issue with the blowers ability to clear itself when taking a full 32" wide, bucket height bite of snow.  The slowest speed of the Ariens is still a little to fast for the blower to process the snow.  So you have to pause your forward speed sometimes for just a second or two to let the blower clear.
So, since I can't slow down the speed of the machine.  Speeding up the blower should I hope take care of that issue.

Tomorrow we will find out.  I'm glad it's going to be a light snow. Only bad thing is that the wind is going to be blowing 25 to 30 with gusts up to 40. So snow is going to be blowing everywhere.  Especially with the throwing distance I may now get. 
I do some city sidewalks for a merchant so I'm hoping I can throw all the way across the street.  (Not allowed to throw into the streets).  But with the wind blowing like that
I may just open the chute straight up and let it blow. They'll never know where it can from : )
I'm going to try and shoot some video.  Put by camera in a freezer bag and on a clamp mount right next to the left handle bar.  We'll see, Maybe well see. With that much wind and snow might not see anything but white.

Forgot, I also added these.  We'll see how they work as well

Instead of changing the tires, why don't you just change the pulleys for the drive system?

Your right I could change the drive pulley to slow it down as well.  The real problem with slowing it down by using smaller tires or a smaller pulley.  Is that the reverse speed is already painfully slow.
So if I slow down the forward speed I'll also be losing more speed in reverse.  That wouldn't be a real big deal for most people doing driveways and parking areas.  But I do some city sidewalks and my
Parkng area is a strange shape.  With limited blowing areas.  So I have to use reverse a lot.  It's a real pain in the butt.  But it is what it is.  Maybe I should just by a Honda and solve all the issues at once.

I know that feeling.  When I did mine I dropped from I think 2.5" to 2" for the drive pulley.  I find myself blowing in 3, 4 and 5 a lot, so I think I will try bumping it up to around 2.75" - 3".  Reverse does suck.

I woke up to 1" - 2" of ice everywhere today so spent time alternating between a coal shovel and my repower.  I would scrape up a big pile of ice and then throw it across the yard. Probably not good for the blower, but worked great and this was some heavy mess.  I had ice / slush and water to deal with.  No clogs with great distance.  Was going through some piles as high as the bucket.  Did lock the axle a few times since everything was ice and I was getting some tire spin.

jrtrebor,

   Kind of thinking out loud about your impressive 4762 ft/sec.

    The numbers below are from my Honda's and might be of interest for comparison to your machine.  Your running an HF 11 Honda and they come set to 3600.   The  specifications of one Honda snowblower owners manual lists for Maximum Output for their motors as:  

6hp @ 4000, 7hp @ 3600, 8hp @ 3600, 9hp @ 3600, 11hp @ 3600.

   They don't say what the factory settings are for each motor.   Below are the numbers from two of my machines.  My 1132 runs at 3470 and sounds like it's low and could easily be run much higher.  Currently it's an astonishing tosser so I have not adjusted anything yet.  The ratios for the 828 are probably the same in the 1132.    

	Engine	Rake	Impeller	Rake D	Impeller D		Ratio	circumference	Ft/Sec
HS624	3900	130	1438	12	10.5		11 to 1	33.0435	3959.713
HS828	3720	124	1427	12	12		11.5 to 1	37.764	4490.769

The numbers I think are helped out, tossing distance wise, by the Honda torque curves which probably peak the same as most engines but are flatter longer.  That may be true for most snowblower engines I've seen except for the Briggs Intek which seems to be a very powerful motor that like a Honda does not give way to too much sagging under very heavy loading.  I'm not sure about the HF's touque curve but it should match or be close to the Honda. 

Not that you would care to beat a Honda but if you did you could detune the auger pulley and increase your engine RPM to get the impeller speed up there.  Assuming you have 14 inch rakes then you'd want more boost to clear snow but of course that could also be governed by your ground speed (you want more of that).   I think at 4762 @ 1300 you'll be clearing less snow at a greater distance than the HS828 with 1427 @ 4490.  The Honda is close to your 130 with 124 even if the augers as 12 and your's 14.  For most snows that may not make a difference.

Have you figured out your ground speed MPH in first?

trout2 thanks for posting the data figures on the engines and blower rpms.
No I haven't ever tried to calculate the ground speed.

We had a lot of wind with this storm so a lot of drifting. I do a lot of city residential sidewalks in the downtown area so people can walk.  We already had between 2 and 3' of snow on the ground.  So all of the corridors a had previously cut and created filled in with all of the snow and wind we had.  Today (starting at 5:00 AM) I probably spent 5 to 6 hours off and on blowing deep fairly dense, deep snow.  
Quite often I had 8 to 10" of snow coming over the top of my bucket which is 22" tall. I don't think I was into anything less than 18"  the whole time I was out.  If I hadn't put on the larger blower drive pulley yesterday I probably would have had a much more difficult, and time consuming time of it.  Considering the conditions and snow load I have to say that the blower performed really well.  It actually has a very nice sound to it.  The motor and the blower sounds seem to kind of resonate with each other. 

I did still have to feather the forward speed with short pauses.  But considering the amount of snow I was trying to clear with a 32" bucket I'm fairly satisfied with the blowers performance.  I think when blowing a more moderate 8 to 12" snow that the forward speed won't be a problem any more.  The chute shields I installed work well didn't have snow beating on the side of my light housing with the chute
turned full to the right.

This morning It was still dark. Wind was blowing 25 to 30 snowing like crazy blowing everywhere.  And I'm thinking am I going to be able to get through this as the snow is rolling over the top of the blower.
Sometimes almost blocking my light. I've got a rooster tail going twenty feet in the air and the wind is blowing it across a two lane street in the opposite direction I was blowing it. It was kind of surreal. 
But everything held together including my hands which got a work out just holding onto the blower and keeping it going in the right direction. When you could see well enough to know which way that was.

I'm definitely going to see if there is some way to retrofit one of the old style Ariens control units to my blower.  I had one on my old 724 and I loved it.  It has two heavy duty handles one for the auger engage
and the other is the speed control.  It was so nice to just be able to engage the augers with a handle and not have to hold down a lever.  You could also disengage without having to stop of even slow down
your forward motion. They have a large button on top which locks and unlocks the levers movement.  There sturdy and precise. Great controls.

 I really would be satisfied with just the auger engage.
That would leave my left hand free to operate the joy stick control for the chute.  Now I have to keep my thumb in the right position to operate the joy stick while at the same time keep my hand in position to operate the auger lever and hold on to the blower. Have to think about that tomorrow. It sure would make things easier. 
Well I'm going to take a shower and go to bed.  I'm beat after a great day blowing snow which ended with the sun shining. 
Can't beat that especially since nothing broke, bent or blew up.