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

Well last year had nothing but slipping problems with the drive and seeing B&S has not come out with a new cover so I solved it on my own. Last year I tried using just weather stripping but water would still get past  seeing the cover is pretty flimsy. I built the piece out of a piece of 3/4 inch  ABS plastic and epoxied it to the cover. It does add alot of strenght to the cover and keeps it from flexing. My next project is to add the new rubber gasket that goes between the frame and engine plate.

http://s1188.photobucket.com/albums/z414/btw574/

nice job machining the filler piece.  I hope this keeps the water out for you.

That was quite a wide gap - I can't believe that B & S did not offer some sort of a fix or a replacement cover. I'd bet that a lot of people had slipping problems as a result of that gap. You did a great job on the fix. Maybe you should patent it and present it to B & S as a retrofit fix to the problem. You could end up making a few $$$....

My Simplicity slipped a couple of times but the gap on mine was up at the top of the belt cover between it and the engine.  I've since fixed mine albeit not as elegant as yours.  Nice job.  Let us know how effective it is.

btw574, what model is your snowblower?  There should be a tag at the back of the base.

It is a 2009 Snapper L1428E  Mfg No 1695681. The gap between the cover and the impeller housing is 3/16".  I looked at this years models and noticed they have a rubber gasket between the frame and motor plate so I had the dealer order it for me. It was just under $8 for it. This summer I ran water on the top of the cover and found water would get through the open hole in the frame. I was just going to silicon all the holes but I figured this would be a better solution to this problem

My idea for my fix on the cover came from when I saw the belt cover on the new Ariens and noticed they have a lip molded on theirs that goes on top on the impeller housing so I just figured out a way to do it to my cover.                                                                                                                                                                                                    

btw574,

    Your machine should have similar tractor components matching a number of archived posts about slipping withe Briggs Murray, Deere, Simplicity and Snapper machines.

One good but long is below.  It floats on and off the topic but mostly applys to your machine.   Your's is a big machine so probably more prone to slipping than smaller Briggs machines.

http://www.abbysguide.com/ope/discussions/33911-A-1.html

Well I have finished my mods to waterproof this thing to keep it from slipping. I added the new engine plate seal to my snowblower. This is a piece new to this years machines I was told. It took me all of about 1 hour to do.   For people who think water does not get under there they are wrong. There was some rust and paint lifting and salt traces under the engine plate. The new seal goes all the way to the front of the frame and I put a wider piece of weather stripping for the plate on the motor to seal to. The one from the factory was maybe 3/8" wide by 1/4" thick. I replace it with a piece of 3/4 wide by 3/16 thick. The nice thing about the new plate gasket is that when you put the belt cover on it goes under the cover and wraps down the side.

I posted new picture of the engine plate seal. I know this summer there will be some cleaning and painting to take care of some rust spot and paint peeling.                                                                               

You did a fine job with the cover.   My neighbour is having slipping clutch problems with his John Deere. I showed him the picture of your cover,  

Nice job on the belt cover.  Love the way it looks.  Sealing up the holes in the housing is probably where the real problem was.
Small amounts of water getting on the belt pulley's wouldn't be a problem very long.  The friction and heat from a slipping belt would dry it in a hurry.
But water with a little grease or oil residue on the friction disk is a different matter.  There are so many spinning parts in the drive train housing. 
That drops of water can get slung all over inside the housing.   And it has no way to dry out.  Don't know why they don't simply pop in plastic hole plugs.
It would be such a simple and cheap fix.

On my old  Murray built Craftsman, mentioned previously ,( sold it in 2009)  I had that clutch slipping problem,    started out slipping in !st gear and reverse only, because the clutch wheel is near the center of the disc.    For a while  it would still operate in  2-6  and high reverse. then all positions  would slip.   It was caused by the old Tecumseh blowing out oil. I had to keep cleaning the disc  and clutch with alcohol .  It would work fine for the next storm, then I had to do it again.  I thought it was just a problem with this long  used machine.   Talking to others who owned  some newer  John Deere , Simplicity machines, they  said that a slipping clutch was not unusual in their machines, but this was caused by   a poorly designed belt cover. letting in melted snow   . To improve their situation, some used  rubber tape ,pieces of rubber, sealant and some purchased a new improved seal that went between the belt cover and the engine.  "Whatever works ". A new Husqvarna with Hydro was my answer .

Nice work, BTW574.

Well we finally got some snow yesterday and put my mods to he test. I did my house and 3 neighbors and was outside for maybe 4 hours and did not have one time when the snowblower would stop moving. I even took hand fulls of snow and put it on the belt cover and around the engine. I even blew snow into the wind so it would blow back onto the snowblower. All in all the mods worked, now bring on a big snowstorm.