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

I am looking for ideas on how to assemble, make-shift an auto rotate chute movement mechanism for our new 621-E. 

Background:

Toro 621-E is a great machine recently bought to replace an old two-stage Ariens that had given good service. The buyer beware caveat being that, because of an ongoing lower back injury and the nature of our property, the chute mechanism direction needs to be moved quite often. That constant motion of stopping, leaning forward to move the chute in a new direction has turned out not to be a good movement for the lower back. The Ariens had an auto chute movement control on the handle so I did not envision the problem that occurs with a manual chute movement of the new 621-E. Getting older and accumlating more aches and pains is a bee-atch. With the dollar spread being some $300+ dollars for a return of the now used 621E and attempts to sell myself (two snowfalls and $559 new) and difference in price of the Toro 621-QZE ($749 new) [wife needs electric for piece of mind], ...

Help sought:

 I am looking for help, ideas, suggestions, resources, etc. to self-assemble, install, jury-rig a mechanism that would control direction movement of the chute. 'Easier' control of the deflector is secondary.

Truly appreciate your feedback.

John

Find a chute with gear teeth around its circumference (some of the two-stage machines have this, either with a manual crank or electric motor) and the associated drive gear.  Then you need a flexible cable drive system, like a dremel extension.  Then connect one end of the drive cable to the drive gear, and the other end to your 18/19v Makita/DeWalt drill up on the handle.  When you need to rotate the chute, pull the trigger on the drill.  If you need to reverse it, flip the drill into reverse.  However, you should be able to make the chute rotate 360 degrees and not need the reverse drive.

A little complicated, but you can design a whole bunch of mods from the concept (e.g. - old obsolete drill attached directly to chute with remote wires triggering the "go" switch).  I think the modern electric drives on fancy two-stage machines use this concept with servo motors, but I'm not convinced the servo motors are strong enough if the chute freezes up between outings.