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

There were quite a few discussions here last year regarding the forward speeds on blowers.  Mostly about the
hydrodrives on the Honda's and how great it is to be able to perfectly match your forward speed with snow conditions.
My Ariens 1032 repowered to an 1132 soon to be repowered again to an 1332 would blow snow pretty well.
But occasionally in deep (20+inches or more) I would have to pause just 2 or 3 seconds to let the blower
clear itself.  My lowest gear was just a little to fast.  Thought about a few things and many had their own thoughts but never came up with a good solution. 
Well I've found one.
It may not work on other brands and many not on all the older Ariens, but on a lot of them.
While I have been repowering and doing fix it, modify it things.
I decided to check something.  What I found was that when the shift lever was in first gear the friction disk
was still about 1" + to the left of center on the drive disk.  So there was room to slow down the blower using the drive system.
The problem lies in the  the slots cut to create the gear positions on the dash board.


This photos shows what the problem, and the solution are.
(I put a piece of carboard behind things to make it easier to see things).





My solution was to make a new panel with an additional slot.  So now I have a six forward speeds and a lower first gear
(The new engine just went on today so I haven't had a chance to see what the lower gear feels like). But it's going to
be slower than it was and that's all I was looking to accomplish.

I did also have to widen the slot a little on the right side. So the the handle would pass the new tooth sticking out.
Look at the turtles head on the right side of the slot in the first photo. Then in the second photo.  You can see
where I ground off some of the slot.

You wouldn't really have to make a whole new panel with all the cutouts.  A person could just make a plate with the one
new slot and screw or rivet it on. Or put on anything that would hold the shift lever in place at that spot.  Before
once you took it out of the first gear slot it would slide all the way down towards the reverse slot.
Problem solved.
Deep snow and hard crusty piles look out this year.

Finished up the engine swap on my blower and was able to check out the speed
of the new first gear.
It's great, it's about half the speed of the old first gear.
Just what I was looking for, a creeper gear.
For really deep and dense snow.