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

Well I've spent a lot of time researching new blowers and came very close to bring home the JD 1330se today but got cold feet after reading about the slipping drive issues. I'd be very interested to hear any long term reviews on this unit as it appears unchanged since 2010. I do have a JD dealer 10 miles from home so prep and support should be better than a Lowes units? Also if there is another blower 30ish inches I should consider please let me know. I live in northern MI with a 150' drive see a fair amount of snow. I dont mind paying a premium for quality if it makes for years of trouble free operation. Thanks for your input

OmFlyer wrote:
borat wrote:
                                                                  
For those who don't know, here are some photos of the John Deere and Simplicity snow blower catalogs that illustrate the similar terminology for turning features.  I thought maybe someone would find it enlightening.


                          Here's the the John Deere 1330SE "Easy Steer" feature from their printed 2011-2012 snow blower catalog:
                   
It's the Hilliard Auto-Lok differential.  Both wheels have power                                   From the specifications chart.  Bottom of photo.
as the operator turns either left or right.  Obviously, the outer
wheel turns faster as compared to the inside wheel.  No
triggers, no engaging and disengaging.

As scopes01 has already mentioned in reply #6 above, the John Deere method of utilizing the Hilliard system is different from how Ariens utilizes it.


          Here's the Simplicity set-up, called "Easy Turn".   This is from the 2008 (left) and 2011 (right) printed snow blower catalogs:                           
   
Not a two-wheel differential; locked two-wheel drive until operator decides to pull the left         From the specifications chart.  At bottom of photo.
trigger for the above effect.               


Having seen both brands of snow blowers at dealers, I prefer the overall build, look and feel of the Simplicity models, except I distrust the electric chute functions that both brands now employ on certain models.  I think the straight-forward mechanical controls are more trustworthy.

Good clarification.

My machine has Easy Turn.  I only use it to disengage one wheel to make turning easier.  I never try to move snow with one wheel driving.  Just doesn't make sense to do so.  What I found with my Easy Turn system is that too much of the wrong type of grease will cause the engagement mechanism to resist separation and make it very difficult to get it into one wheel drive.  I have since cleaned the grease off and now use oil to lubricate it. 

Dr_Woof wrote:

A jogger maybe a good or reasonable meal but a runner is too boney to make a decent meal for the cougar. It might not even taste all that great.

With a trigger release, does it only provide a dramatic improvement in turning ease for one direction?  If the left wheel is released, I guess turning left would be quite a bit easier than turning right?

Stainless wrote:
With one wheel disengaged, it turns easily in both directions.

borat wrote:

If the left wheel is disengaged, it would seem to me that turning left would be easier than turning right.  When you're turning right, the right wheel is still receiving power, correct?

I looked at machines at HomeDepot with the one release trigger on the left side.  I never operated one of these but apparently it just releases power to the left side.    My Husqvarna and many other makes use a trigger on each side, which enables gradual turns or zero radus turns , the same in either direction.

I have a snapper 1132 which is a 2005 series machine with trigger release on the left. Even though it only releases one side it still turns either way easily

Hi guys...here is a picture below of a Hilliard Auto Lok system on an Ariens 1130DLE 921003...as you can see the axle drive is driven by a spur gear and pinion and not by a sprocket and chain system like the John Deere picture above. The spur gear is mounted on the Hilliard Auto-Lok system as you can see in the picture. This system is far more superior and easier to work with. It will keep the traction of your blower going in a straight line compared to John Deere's "Easy Steer". This picture was taken from a previous post from "goofienewfie" in Dec 2008. This differentail is similiar to the Ariens Pro 28,32, 32 & Platinum Series machines.

I've seen it mentioned that one implementation of the Auto Lok was better than another, due to gears vs chains (as I recall). I'd never seen pictures of either system. Now I have (thank you guys for posting those). But, forgive me, I'm not understanding how a chain vs a spur gear should make any difference in the operation of the differential.

The outside body of the differential is turned by the drive system. As with the open differential on my older Ariens, there are two splined outputs, one to each wheel. It would appear to me that those are the system's only connections to the outside world. The hardware inside the body of the differential (the guts that make the auto-locking magic happen) have no idea whether there is a chain on the outside, a spur gear, or a series of small but powerful hamsters with cranks :)

It has been mentioned (perhaps by you, scopes01, but I don't recall for sure) that one system (Ariens') performed better than the other (John Deere) in some testing. I have no reason to doubt the observation. But borat has talked about the lubrication on the system being important making it function properly. Is it possible that the difference was because one machine was set up better than the other?

If there's more to this that I'm not understanding, my apologies, I'd love to learn. I just don't quite understand how a chain vs a gear on the differential will make a significant difference in how the Auto-Lok performs. And it sounds like a really cool system, by the way, in theory providing the best of both worlds.

My Ariens has an open differential, which I'm looking forward to trying out. My MTD had the basic system where you can lock both wheels together, or let 1 wheel freewheel constantly; I always kept them locked together. My only concern with my differential is how much the machine will be constantly trying to pull to one side, to whichever side has snow on it, making me fight it the whole time. I am assuming that you can reduce the tendency to pull to the side by using a slower ground speed, and taking a more complete cut, so that the snow's resistance is more balanced across the width of the machine. That is, going fast, and only using 1/4 of the machine's width would make it pull to that side harder. Go slow, and almost fill the bucket, and I presume it will go straighter.