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

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.

I'm afraid the HS621 is the old school design where throughput was favored over distance.   On light fluffy snow, it doesn't throw very far.  However, the paddle design and the engine perform well under heavier wet snow.   It is most impressive moving a full bucket height of snow.  Although the auger doesn't pull itself forward very much, you have to push it to feed it snow.  :)

Well the new belt and some adjustments made a BIG difference! WOW is all I can say. After using the HS520 with GC engine I became slightly disillusioned with SS machines in general but that's all changed now. Once I got the HS621 dialed in properly (subject to change without notice) it was really fun to operate and did a great job on my +/- 130' driveway, garage apron area and EOD.

A few notes of interest: The HS621 seem to throw best when the chute is in the zero degree location, not quite as good to the left or the right but acceptable. I was getting a good 15' - 20' feet throwing distance straight on which was really cool. I realized that I had to change my usual course of attack that I would use with the 2 stage in order to get good full bucket, zero degree, straight on runs for it to work the best with the SS machine.

Once I got it figured out (and I'm still learning) how to manipulate this SS machine, it became quite easy and fun to operate. A slight lift to the bucket and you get pulled along nicely - too much of a lift and you're chasing the SOB. Not having to muscle around a 250 lb. 2 stage for less than 6" of snow is a lot less work than usual. I cannot wait to use this bad boy in some heavier snow because I think it's going to kick some serious A$$!!!

I might just have a new "go to" machine for anything less than 8" or 10" of white gold!

Got 5 inches of snowfall on Friday night.  It was a good mix of wet heavy snow, then transitioning to lighter fluffy stuff.  Not a big snowfall, but enough to have fun.  Of course, this kind of snow, I took out the Toro 421QE single stage machine, and my 30" human powered snow pusher.  :)  Couldn't wait until Saturday morning to clear the snow, instead got out there Friday night while some snow was still falling.

I got my OPE fix and some good exercise with manual shoveling.

Unless there's a 20" blizzard, I'm very happy with the Toro SS.  It has plenty of power and the agility cannot be understated. 

100% on the agility factor.It was nice to not feel kind of beat up after a snow clearing session. I realize that 20" of snow is a lot harder to clear than 6" or 8" and absolutely requires a 2 stage machine but it's sooo nice and easy  to manipulate that SS machine as compared to the 2 stage. File this one under using the right tool for the job at hand!

Amen, Frank. I got to use my SS, SS322, and 2-stage, ST824, today. We got 2-3" of very fluffy snow (so still an easy test). Did most of it with the SS, but kept blowing it onto the driveway, in the same direction, to keep building up a deeper area. I wanted something to simulate a slightly bigger storm. The SS did well, I was very happy with it. Fast and easy to swing around. I did notice this time that when I'd raise the handle to start a run (bringing the paddles to the ground), sometimes the RPMs would drop quite a bit, then recover. I thought it was about to stall the first time. I then tried a few clicks of choke, and it *seemed* to make the RPM drop less drastic. So perhaps it's running slightly lean? The carb is not adjustable, and is freshly cleaned.

I did actually get it to clog up a few times at the EOD and in the street. In the street, the salt had melted some of the snow, so it was wetter. I'm pretty sure the paddles were spinning the whole time, but it did stop throwing (belt is new, and adjusted properly). Backed off, checked the chute, and tried again. Maybe I just need to take partial cuts, or slow down a bit. Mine's only 3hp, not a bigger machine like yours, Frank, but I am still really liking it so far. We'll see how it does this winter, I could consider looking for a larger SS for next year. Like you said, it's very friendly to use, and can be quick as well. Probably also less intimidating for my wife to use. At least for smaller storms, I'd say it's more pleasant to use than the 2-stage.

I did also get to try my ST824 for the first time, in the piled-up snow. It did well, no unpleasant surprises. The handle functions are reversed from my MTD, so I kept squeezing the wrong one. The differential is cool. It did spin a tire a few times, so I'll be putting the chains on (wanted to try it without them first). I will confess it wasn't really flinging the snow 1/2 mile or anything. So I may pursue trying to put a (homemade) Clarence kit on it. It did seem to throw further when I got into some deeper stuff. I did think it was funny going to the 4-stroke 2-stage from the 2-stroke SS. The big engine sounded like it was turning so slowly :) 1800 power strokes per minute, vs 4600.

Edit- Please forgive me going on at length on this stuff, I'm just excited to try out my new "toys". And this is my first time using a SS; I'd always considered them something you'd use if you didn't have space for a 2-stage, say (at least here in New England, with decent-sized storms). But now I understand where they shine. Like Frank said, the right tool for the job.

FrankMA wrote:

It's an awesome machine, once you got everything working as it should.  Don't be shy to take on EOD pile.  There's nothing wimpy about the GX160 engine and that 9 inch wide flat center paddle.