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

aa335 wrote:
Given the topics of this forum, if you decide to use the pusher instead of one of the snowblowers, you may want to keep it to yourself. OPE is Outdoor Power Equipment, not Outdated Push Exercise

I didn't say I was going to use just the snow pusher.  Snow is golden at this time of the year, especially since we haven't seen much of it this winter.  I'm sure to get my OPE fix, even if I have to snowblow the neighbor's sidewalks.  :)  There's about 250 feet of it and those teenage boys aren't doing it by themselves.

I have 3 snowblowers but I still enjoy the exercise of shoveling by hand.  :)  Nothing to be ashamed of that. 

Finally got some snow like RedOctobyr was saying, about 3" total. Finally got a chance to use the venerable Honda HS621 Single Stage and was not very impressed to be honest. I think I'll have to take a look at tightening the tension on the belt or getting a new belt altogether. It threw the snow but not as robust as I would have expected and got clogged at the base of the chute several times. The snow was very light and fluffy so I did not expect the issues I encountered. It has to be a stretched belt that warrants an adjustment or replacement. Any other thoughts or suggestions???

I think you're on the right track, it's either belt slip or low belt tension when bail is engaged that would cause clogging.  Check to make sure that the pulleys or belt are not coated with some kind of lubricant.  I've pushed my HS621 full bucket height into heavy snow and concrete mix at the EOD and never had clogging issues.  The engine will likely stall out under heavy load before clogging.  3" is light fluffy snow should not cause any clogging, in any machine.

When it would clog, could you tell if the paddles were still spinning? Was anything coming out at all, or still getting flung around up front? If the belt was slipping that badly, I'd expect that the paddles might have stalled out entirely, and maybe you'd be able to see some evidence of that? If they had definitely stopped, then you're definitely chasing a belt issue, and you can narrow down the possible clogging causes.

With the fluffy snow, there wouldn't have been much resistance against them. Could you try pulling the plug wire (or killing ignition, etc), hold the bail down with something, and try rotating the paddles by hand? Can you tell if they can turn without the engine turning over with them? I replaced the belt in my Ariens while getting it ready for action. It did have a belt tension adjustment using the idler pulley, which I had to shift quite a bit to snug it up to the spec in the manual. Just trying to think of ways you can check the belt without opening the machine, as removing the cover on mine was a bit of a pain. Don't know if the Hondas are the same way.

Edit- Another option for checking the belt- With the engine off, hold the bail down with something to engage the paddles (I like zip ties). Stick something (a piece of wood, whatever) into the paddles to jam them up so they can't turn. Now pull the cord, and see if the engine can turn with the paddles stuck. That would let you put more torque on the belt than you could by simply fighting the engine's compression as you turn the paddles by hand. Plus you can't somehow lose a finger

Thanks aa & Red. I'll check it today at some point when I have a chance. Going to be near a Honda dealer today so I may just stop in and get a new belt. I'd rather have one on hand when I remove the belt cover just in case it's needed. I actually meant to do this when I first got it but never got around to it. We're supposed to get up to 3" or so today so I'll be able to put it to the test when I'm done. I'll let you know how it goes.

If you like you can generously spray silicone lubricant inside the chute starting from the base to exit.  If the belt is in a really bad shape, the inside of the belt should be hard and very slippery with burnt black stuff.  I was a bit surprized to learn that it does not take too much engage/disengage cycles to beat up the belt.  Hopefully the belt will do the trick.

I got a new belt and replaced the old one which was well worn and stretched a bit. The old belt came off the pulleys very easy while the new one took some coaxing. It feels much more responsive than before so I'm sure that this was most likely the problem. I cleaned what I believe was the remnants of the old belt from the housing and gave everything the once over. I also did an oil change while I had it up on my bench just for good measures as I never got around to doing that either - I know, I should be ashamed of myself!  

We're getting about 3" or so of the light fluffy stuff this morning into the early afternoon so I'll give it a whirl and report back later today. This is the same type of snow we got the other day when I first used my new to me HS621 so it will be a comparable test.

If the old belt was very easy to come off, stretched belt very likely is the root cause of the clogging. I haven't had problems with it since I usually perform frequent maintenance and replace parts that seems questionable. When I last replaced the belt on the HS621, there were a lot of black dust, tell tale signs that the belts are wearing. Also, if you're running out of holes to adjust the belt tension, it's too stretched out and should be replaced. Also when adjusting the tension, too much will cause premature wear and stretch. I don't spray anything into the chute because I've never felt it needed it.

There was a bunch of fairy dust inside the belt housing so I'm sure it should work better. I also took up a little slack by adjusting the cable one notch down to tighten it up a bit. I did this after I tried it out and it still seemed a bit lackluster in the distance department. Going out now to give it another shot and see how much (hopefully) the distance performance improves.