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

    The results of Borats Craftman seem pretty good even in comparison to the newer Toro's with 141cc engines and curved paddles runing stock rpm.  I gave up on MTD straight paddles a few years ago so stopped buying them. BUT given the good showing of Borats machine decided to give an HSK850 a fling for which a cheap MTD or Murray is a good candidate.

   This morning I picked up an MTD 5.5 in excellent shape, (mostly) for $100.   The body is excellent, no rust no scratches but the inside of the bucked has the paint scrapped.  The guys 3 car lot was sand and gravel with mounds and holes.  It's electric start, 4-5 years old but only used for two seasons due the owners heart condition. 

    It came with a line cord and for some reason three brand new belts, a bottle of Sta-Bil and a gallon and a half can of gas half full.  His son gave it to him with a bottle of Sta-Bil which he thought was the mix required.   He only ran it with Sta-Bil, no oil and from what he tells me only ran about slightly less than a gallon of gas through it since he got it.  He claimed that one can of gas half full he gave me was the only fuel he ever bought for it.  

   It fired up on the first pull and seemed to run strong so I ignored the no oil part and bought it.  It gets 95psi compression on three rope pulls and 115 on electric start so seems ok. 

Borat,

    I'd like to compare the flat paddle section of this one to yours.  If you can please measure your mid-paddle section flats.  What's the L and W of one section and what's the distance front to back?  The MTD is (2) 1 3/4 x 4 1/4 sections and the front to back span is 8 1/4.  If they match then the MTD should compare your Murray with booted RPM.  I've got an excellent condition Toro 3650 I'm using this year so have a good machine to compare with.

Around these parts, SS machines are a rarity. 

Last year and this year, I was/am vigilantly watching ads for used SS machines on Kijiji.  Only four machines were listed last year.  One was a Toro CCR2000/3000, can't remember which, nonetheless, the woman selling it was asking a ridiculous price so I passed on it and bought an brand new Toro 221 QE for only a hundred or so more than what she was asking.   There was a Honda HS35 in great shape for sale for a reasonable  price but the four stroke engine put me off.   The other two I bought.

This year there are thirty or forty dual stage machines (mostly Craftsman/MTD/AYP) products listed.  Occasionally, you'll see a nice old Ariens or Toro  dual stage but that's infrequent.  Around here, SS machines simply aren't appreciated.  Initially, I didn't even know SS machines existed up until about five years ago (when I joined this forum).  Nonetheless, after becoming aware of their existence, I had the same view of them as being inadequate for our conditions.  I had never seen one in action so I didn't know any better.  Even when I picked up the old Craftsman, I was far from impressed with it's performance.  I'd rate it at about 10% better than a shovel.  It was truly lame but I knew there was potential in the two cycle engine and for the price, if  it blew up, so be it.  I was buying it just to experiment with anyway. 

After a bit of work fixing the engine mount, over-riding the governor and putting on a new belt, it's been doing yeoman service since.   It sees more work than any other machine I have for several reasons.  First of all, it's much more fun to use, works great, handles all but the worst storms and lastly, I want to see how long it will hold up being run well beyond the machine's stock settings.  I'm certain that it has at least ten to fifteen hours  hard labour on  it by now.  Time will tell but so far, I couldn't ask for more.  

SS's are definitely sold around here. But I see people using 2-stages much more often, I'd say. Kind of like you, my only real exposure to a SS was my neighbor, who has/had an older Toro, I think it was. That, unfortunately, didn't make a great case for getting one :) I'd see him out there slogging along with it, trying to clear his fairly long driveway. It definitely had more trouble with the EOD. But it was his only machine, so it was being used in storms where it was kind of outmatched. Plus I'm sure it wasn't revved up. So it didn't give a great impression of them. I'm sure it was nice for the lighter storms, at least.

He got an older Ariens 2-stage last year. I don't know whether he still has the SS, or how he likes the 2-stage by comparison. But with the heavy storms we got last year, I'd expect he was liking the extra grunt of the 2-stage, especially for EOD piles.

Borat,

   It seems that part of the reason an SS works for you is your area.   Your driveway seems pretty flat and the shape good for doing long runs tossing straight ahead which for you ends up off your driveway.   Here doing diagonals is required for straight ahead clearing.  The height of snow I can toss right or left drops off very quickly with the SS so limiting.   The driveway surface is in bad shape, lots of mounds and cullies and the tar surface lower than it should be exposing the tops of rocks the rest of which are embedded solidly in the tar.  That makes for SS bounce and chatter which degrade performance.   A dual stage glides better over the surface but many places where the impellers scrape surface.  A number of the pictures and videos you've posted looked like the snow was pretty good for tossing.  Here the snow is usually usually wettish and not so great for tossing often.  When it's super cold it's usually ok though.  You being up there further north makes me think you might average more storms with good conditions. 

    My first SS was a Toro vane type.  It was good at throwing straight ahead.  It tossed a low wide stream about 15 feet making it's own blizzard in front of itself and nice for light snows 3-4 inches.   It could not do much with EOD.  That got dumped for a Powerlite which was a great improvement and I've had one around eversince. 

     I'm thinking of booting the 3650.  It's in excelelnt condition and can probably take a 1000-1500 boot ok.  It would be done already if it wasn't for the covers.  But maybe a string can be snuck in with just the bottom cover off.  I'll have to check.

RedOctobyr,

      Murray made a Craftsman model 6.5hp OHV with no throttle.  The neighbor brought over his non-starter this fall and it caught me off guard.  MTD puts out some new models with no throttle.  I think one of the low end Ariens models is no-throttle.

You're right Trouts.  Our snow is most often dry and fairly light.  Sometimes, if it's blown in on a blizzard, it gets finely packed and much more dense.   That's a once or twice a year occurrence.  Sometimes we get heavy amounts that is fairly wet and lots of it.  When that happens, it's the Simplicity's time to come out.  More often than not, the SS machines get the job done. 

Even when powered up, the Craftsman can choke on wet slushy snow.  Happened earlier this year.  We got about five inches of slush and the Craftsman was having trouble with it if I tried to feed it full width passes.  I cut it back to half to 2/3rds width or so and it moved it nicely.  I should have pulled out the Toro to test it on the same stuff to see how it would have fared.  Might have done better due to a superior paddle system but maybe not considering the power advantage of the Craftsman.