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

Guys,

I may get to go check out some SS's. One is a Yardman 21" 5hp 2-stroke. The other is a Toro CCR2000e 2-stroke.

I am leaning towards the Yardman, based on boratification possibilities. I'm guessing/hoping it has a 5hp Tecumseh, maybe the HSK850. The Toro would have a 4.5hp Suzuki engine, from what I understand. I don't care about electric start. Any reason to avoid the Yardman? I realize it's probably not as solid/durable a machine as the Toro. But if it could be ramped up more in the power department, I could live with that. Thanks for any feedback.

It felt weird doing spring cleaning in February.  I was cleaning out my garage, detailing the car, and summerizing 3 snowblowers this weekend.  It was so warm I thought about waking up the grass with some spring fertilizer feeding.

However, I feel being cheated out of my share of snowblowing.  I haven't used even one gallon of gas on snow removal yet. 

   Looked at the Murray 3hp and Craftsman 3/21.   With the cases off the frame parts look the same.   Looking from the side with the wheels as the reference the Craftsman's engine sits further back than the Murray engine. 

Wow, lots of good info. Thanks guys.

aa335, really appreciate the pointer on what the paddles might have come from. That's great to know.

And I'm in complete agreement with you. I do not like how the engine is currently a big, unsupported cantilevered beam. That makes me uncomfortable. Fortunately for me, there is a threaded stud sticking through the recoil shroud, at the bottom of the engine. I took a look at the parts list drawings, and it does not appear that anything is supposed to attach there (strange). But it seems like a great place to add an engine mount, probably going to the big green tube that goes right below the engine. I will have to measure it up, then I'm hoping to be able to make something to grab onto that tube, and bolt to the engine. That would make the engine mounting vastly more secure. The sheetmetal that it mounts to by the shaft is not terribly thick. trouts2, they had an opportunity to mount it rather like your Toro picture, but apparently chose not to.

This machine has a very different look/feel from the Ariens. The Ariens has a much larger housing (even ignoring that mine has the smaller -600 engine). There's a lot of empty space in there, and still would be in the version with the -850. The Yardman, by contrast is very compact, as was noted previously. They may not quite have packed 10 lbs of stuff into a 5 lb bag, but they definitely took a different approach than Ariens, which has 5 lbs of stuff in a 10 lb bag. The Yardman is noticeably heavier (larger engine, plus electric start. Also a metal lower body, vs plastic on the Ariens). But I wonder if I might actually be easier to carry up the stairs if I had to. Being physically smaller, you can get the weight closer to your body, and it's also just less bulky.

Thanks for the positive feedback on the machine & specifically the impeller setup. I was starting to worry that I may have simply bought an albatross. But if the Powercurve impeller might actually be a bit of an improvement (for performance) in some respects, then maybe the swap isn't a terrible thing. I do wish I could at least slide the impeller to the right, to center it, but I doubt there would be a practical way to do that, while still letting the drive pulley mount to it. I haven't taken a close look at that, though. Just took a look at my pics again, and looked up the part # molded into the drive pulley. It's a Toro #. And the stock Yardman belt is a v-belt, whereas the machine has a ribbed-style belt (and engine sheave). So who knows what all was swapped around to make this change I'll confess I don't like that kind of thing, because it makes me wonder if the setup will really work, and it also becomes difficult to replace a part if something wears or breaks. Is the broken thing the part # that's actually listed in the parts list, or something else?

If the engine wear doesn't look too bad, that's good to know, thanks.

RedOctobyr,

Have you thought about pulling the HSK850 from the Yardman and put it into your Ariens SS322 chassis?  Seems like that chassis can accommodate a 3 hp, 5hp, and a 7hp engine with just a few mounting brackets here and there.   I think Ariens have a good design on this snowblower,   I think that molded auger is pretty cool and just need some serious power to drive it.  I've been toying with the idea of picking up one of these Ariens SS, pull the stock engine, and drop in a GX200 Honda clone engine.  The GX200 engine is a four stroke, 200cc, has very good torque, combined with that stiff molded auger, should be able to dig through EOD very well, for a SS, that is.  The only trouble is that this engine is OHV, dimensionally it might not fit inside the housing.

Anyways, I was just throwing out some ideas since you have the SS322 and the HSK850 sitting around that potentially can make an awesome machine.  Somehow, they should be united.  :)  I found this youtube video on the Ariens 722EC, that's where I got the idea from. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GOixwhKtMg&feature=related  ,  skip to 8:00 for closeup on the Ariens 722EC

The other machine on that video is the Honda HS928TCD, one of my favorite 2 stage machine.  It's a shame Honda does not sell this model in the US.

I have, in fact, considered that. The swap is probably doable, though it might take a bit of tinkering. I might need to make something for the second set of engine mounts, the ones near the recoil housing, for the Ariens frame. Assuming that both engines have the same crankshaft dimensions, I *should* be able to pull off the V-belt sheave from the -600 and put it on the -850. I'm not sure how the electric start plug would mount in the Ariens.

The impeller RPMs would be too low, since the -850 spins slower than the -600, and comes with a larger pulley sheave when used in the Ariens. At 3600 RPM, the impeller RPM would be 1000 using the -600's pulley, vs the 1200 that it should be. Cranking the RPMs would raise it back up, but would still be lower than with a larger -850 sized sheave at the same RPM. The flip side would be added impeller torque (due to the lower "gear ratio" for the impeller), so it wouldn't bog as much in heavier stuff It could become an EOD-busting SS. 

Haven't looked into any details yet. No idea what the larger pulley sheave costs, if I wanted to swap it. One downside is that my Ariens does not have a chute crank. The "fancier" SS522 comes stock with a chute crank. The other option, of course, would be to sell the Yardman and simply buy an SS522 in the first place. I don't know if I could put the smaller -600 in the Yardman. One thing that keeps going through my mind is wondering if it's just silly to be thinking about swapping engines around, and maybe I should just get the Yardman ready for action and leave it at that

Red,

    That cowling stud dosent seem to go with that body.  I'll bet the engine is not original to that body and may have come from a newer MTD model.  Makers like MTD and Murray would order cowlings specific to engines so paying for an extra unused mounting bolt is not likely.

Red:

Jack up the Yardman and flog it.  See how it does.  I agree that you should try to use the stud in the recoil/fan cover as an additional engine support.  It will assist in keeping the engine put.  Mix your fuel at 32:1 and see how well it works.  I suspect that running at speed, with that auger, that thing should move some serious snow. 

Does the center of the curve of the auger paddles line up with the snow ejection hole/chute?  If so, it should work well.  Even if it's off to one side a bit, I'm confident that slight disadvantage will be overcome by the sheer velocity of the auger. 

RedOctobyr wrote:

Sometimes you can find a used SS522 cheaper than you can do engine swaps.  Nothing wrong with running the HSK850 on Yardman and see if the extra RPM improves performance.  I'ts easy, cheap, and convenient.   It's just my nature to run with my own hodge podge than someone elses.  Besides, there's no snow in sight to test the machine and it's been warm so it's the perfect time for engine swaps.  You know sooner or later whether you will just leave it at that. 

RedOctobyr wrote:

You definitely want to gear it so when the auger is under high load of the EOD, it doesn't slow down the 2 stroke engine below the powerband, seems like torque drops off fast.  When that happens, the auger slows to a crawl and doesn't have the velocity to push the snow up the chute and it just plugs.  Seen this all the time on my neighbor's 221QR.  Toro's PowerCurve design is semi open around the shaft by intent, so when the snow cannot be pushed up the chute, the auger spits it out in front.  This lessens the torque demand.  The upside of this design is the auger assembly is extremely lightweight and efficient which gives it good throwing distance.  It's quite smart design actually, because when plugging occurs, you just have to ease back, let the engine spins up again, and the auger will purge the plugged snow, with a little wiggling.  The auger just aerates the snow, purges it, and you're back in business.  Rarely do you need to stick something in the chute to clear it.

If you want an EOD busting SS, look into the Honda HS621.  That has a reinforced flat center paddle, it is basically a chopper bar in the middle.  The center is also closed so it will throw sludge very well, nothing gets past it.  The torque demand for this machine is a lot higher, higher rotational mass, it is more suitable with a large displacement four stroke spinning at lower RPMS.  I've bumped up the RPM on this engine and it does not like overrevving, lots of noise and vibration.  It feels like throwing a rod or messing up the valve train.

Anyways, I think I've gone into more details on the mechanics of the snow moving parts than you may expected, but it's interesting to see how each company differs in approach of the problem.  When I looked closer at the Ariens 722EC, this design seems to be a combination of Toro and Honda design pulled together.  I think Ariens would have had a killer all around SS if they had dropped in a 200cc 4 stroke engine.  Unfortunately, at the the time these super expensive SS were coming into the market, people were just not interested in spending +$800 single stage machines.  It's expensive to make a SS approach the performance of a true 2 stage, and it only gets heavier.  Ariens didn't see the point of having this super SS encroaching on the sales ground their revered 2 stage. 

trouts2, given the other changes on this machine, I could believe that this might not be the original engine, due to the presence of the "extra" mounting stud. I was also surprised to see it there, with nothing attached, for reasons like you said.

borat, the center of the paddle does not quite line up with the chute, unfortunately. Given that the new impeller is supposedly 1" narrower (haven't actually measured it), it would be off by 1/2". Though it might be a bit more than a 1" difference. I'd be looking to ramp the RPMs on this, so hopefully that would help offset the problem, like you said.

It's the quality/durability of the Yardman that is part of my concern. The Ariens feels like a better machine. Plus the Yardman is sort of a collection of assorted parts at the moment.

I would not attempt an engine swap if I could not put the -600 in the Yardman. Currently I have 2 machines that run, the goal is to sell 1. That's a lot tougher if one no longer has an engine. But I might be better off to leave them with their own engines, sell 1, and keep an eye out for an inexpensive SS522 or other good machine with an -850. One advantage with my SS3222 is that I know it's in good condition overall. And a number of SS machines don't have chute cranks (so maybe it's not a big deal). I can just spin it manually. The extra power, however, would be pretty nice.

I did realize that the choke controls are different on the 2 engines. The Ariens uses a push-pull plunger for the choke. The Yardman uses a left-right lever. I'd have to look at them more closely to see if the carbs themselves work the same way, and I could keep the plunger control on the Ariens, even with going to the -850 carb, etc. The Yardman does have several sets of engine mounting holes around the crankshaft; hopefully some would line up with the -600.

Oh, and as nice as a Honda would be, I can't justify spending a whole bunch of money for something really nice. I'd like more than 3hp, so I could use the SS in slightly bigger storms. But I don't really need something of the Honda's caliber & expense.