Here's an informative video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH1RRx2j9SM
From what the guy is saying, the cogged belt runs cooler because the breaks in the belt cut the heat cycle?
Not sure how important that would be on a snow blower. A bit of heat isn't a bad thing on a cold day.
Speaking of belts, I was using the Murray the yesterday to blow away the snow I had rounded up with the pusher shovel. I noticed that the paddles would stop completely when I pushed the machine into a high pile of snow. Did that a few times so I figured I'd better look into the reasons. I figure it was simply a belt adjustment and pulled off the side plate to look at the idler pulley to adjust it. I completely forgot that the adjuster was on the cable. Just as well because the problem wasn't the adjustment. The slipping was being caused by snow being pushed into the belt/pulley housing through a crack where the two surfaces meet. Cheap plastics again. The belt would slip until it cooked off the water from melted snow and would grab. I ended up putting a bead of gasket glue between the two surfaces and an additional screw to pull in the widest section of the crack. All is well now.
This message was modified Dec 22, 2012 by borat