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

So, I've been itching to post a picture of my snow machines, too bad there isn't any action shots.

All ready to go. From left to right:

1.  JD 826, early 80s? Bought last Sept. from a local hobbyist that buys machines from garage sales, CL, auctions. He repaints after "checking the bushings and belts".  Got it for $475, did I overpay, maybe but it is what I wanted.  I bought a new scraper bar and took some time to get the frozen axel/differential to move again.

2.  1977 Ariens 932001, 2.7hp 20in cut, elec start.  Free, spotted this poor soul setting by a dumpster on the way home one night early Dec.  The body looked great in the headlights so I brought it home.  After looking it over the engine was stuck, it didnt have a sparkplug in the hole, anyway took some PB blaster and seafoam down the bore, waited two hours and still couldnt pull the starter so I took the belt cover off and used channellocks on the shaft, it moved just a little and the more I went back and forth the engine eventually rotated a whole cycle.  Added new sparkplug, gave it some fuel, and had it running in about 2 minutes.  The only other thing I did was replace the fuel line, while I did that I washed out the fuel tank good.

3. 2005 Frontier 5hp 21in SS.  Given to me 4 years ago by my step dad when he got a 2 stage and I had just got back from a tour in Iraq with a goofed up shoulder.  It was a great change from the shovel and wheelbarrow method I had been using to clean out my drive, see my drive butts up next to the drive of the neighbor next door and there is no where to stick the snow inbetween the two houses so the wheelbarrow and sometimes the kid's sled was used to move snow to the back yard.  The thing I dont like about this machine is first its china made and due to that I think John Deere is ashamed they even sold it that I can't find much documentation on the internet about it.  I gave it a new scraper bar this year so now it too is hungry for snow.

So now the photos

Nice "family"! Have you checked the compression of the Ariens or anything? Just curious how the engine is doing, after it rusted up like that. I'm impressed you got it running, that's pretty cool. The augers on the JD look like a pretty big diameter. And it's actually interesting looking at the pitch of the "screw" that the augers form, on the JD (fine pitch), vs the Ariens (coarse/fast pitch).

And thank you for your service!

I dont have anything to actually test the compression but after the oil change I "drove" it around the block engaging the auger on some leaves and it all sounded good.  It has a tecumseh engine that has a diaphram (first I've ever seen), had some fuel leakage but somehow seemed to fix itself.  I figured I dont know how much abuse it took when it stopped working so I'm not too concerned on the carb.  otherwise it looks like all original paint, only mission one warning sticker and I love the "chrome"like Ariens branding on it.

Nice that you were able to rescue that little Ariens from the dumpster - I hate to see salvageable OPE go to the trashman. I scored a Toro CCR2000E last year from the side of the road left out for trash that had new paddles and a new scrapper bar. I did a fluff and buff, tightened and cleaned everything, new spark plug and gave it to my sister who absolutely loved it - especially because it had the electric start feature.