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

I saw a posting about a week ago on Craiglist, someone was clearing out their shed, and was offering an Ariens single stage snow thrower for free. I was fortunate enough to be the first one to call. By the time I got over there, he said he'd gotten about 15 calls about it, and he got 2 more while I was getting it in the car. He said it ran when they put it away 2 years ago, but wouldn't start. It turned out to be an SS322. Has a Tecumseh HSK600 engine, 98 cc, 2-stroke, 3 hp.

Got it home and tried the obvious/easy stuff. Drained out the gas, which looked disconcerting (had some dark stuff that stayed as a liquid layer at the bottom of the tank and would not mix in with the rest of the gas). That didn't help. It would start using starting fluid or carb cleaner, and run for a few seconds, but that was it. I measured about 90 psi compression. The cylinder & piston looked good to me, looking in through the exhaust port.

Long story short, I got a rebuild kit, and did my first carb rebuild yesterday. Opened it up and was horrified to find a bunch of green stringy goop on the float and bowl, and a whole lot of nasty brown globs at the bottom of the bowl. It looks like someone took the bowl off previously, and sealed around the o-ring (which was still installed) with something, maybe silicone? The o-ring was covered in this stuff, and it was visible on the outside of the o-ring, before removing the bowl. The gas seemed to have eaten that, and the carb was just a real mess (everything was plugged, etc). Took a whole lot of carb cleaner, and soaking the carb in Berryman B-12 after removing the plastic/rubber stuff, plus scraping stuff off of it, etc. But finally got the insides cleaned up. The only question was about reinstalling the plastic (emulsifier?) tube that goes up from the main jet. I had 2 new o-rings in my kit, one seemed a bit bigger than the other. I put the bigger one at the "back", down by the jet. Put some oil on them, and pushed the tube into the carb by pushing it with a punch to try and support the rear o-ring. It kind of slipped off the back of the tube (did not stay in its groove), and ended up between the tube and the main jet. I hope that's OK. I didn't want to risk damaging the o-rings by driving it back out and trying again.

Once I was ready to reassemble it, I discovered a hole in the freshly-cleaned carb bowl, which had some serious corrosion on the inside. Picked up a new bowl today.

Reassembled it tonight, took it outside, and it fired up on the second pull! I was thrilled. Wasn't sure if my first carb rebuild attempt was actually going to work. It's not running perfectly smoothly, it seems to be 4-stroking a bit. The carb is not adjustable. I'm hoping it will smooth out when I put a load on it. It was about 60F out. I may put some Seafoam in the gas, to see if I can finish removing anything that might be left in the carb. I need to replace the auger belt, and check over the rest of the machine. But I'm happy, maybe I'll get to try a little 2-stroke single stage machine this winter. It would be cool if this was the 5hp version, but I certainly can't complain, for the price :) I have an electric Toro Powercurve 1800 for clearing the deck. Perhaps this could replace the Toro.

Anyways, I was just happy about it finally starting up, and wanted to share.

I park mine on the deck all winter under the eave of the house.  Don't even cover it. 

You'd be better off just leaving it there for the duration.  Just buy one of those big inexpensive plastic tote boxes and throw that over it or modify it to use as a cover.  That will keep it out of the elements.