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

Well. where do I start.
Snow conditions - About two inches, dense but not wet.
Started on the first pull... Good
Has plenty of power...Good
Will pull you along... Good
Cuts a nice wide 24" path... Good
Throws snow... Not so good
Were talking three maybe four feet.
Belt was checked - tight
My thoughts. As most know you've got to feed a blower enough snow for it  to be able to
throw it's maximum distance.  When the snow depth is let's say three inches or less
you may have to be moving forward pretty quick to provided enough snow to the blower.
( there are other factors but generally speaking)
So maybe that was part of the problem.  This blower has three paddles so it should be
able to process more snow than a two paddle.  It has the power (7hp) and because the
auger drive pulley is 1 1/2" small in diameter than the 2000 and 3000 series Toro blowers.
There shouldn't be a power problem with spinning an extra paddle. And the additional four inch
wide bucket.

Having said that, SS blowers get their performance by way of auger RPM.
Borat has shown that in his videos.  (plus the added bonus of more power out of the engine when raising the engine RPM.)
So having a much smaller pulley on the auger shaft may offset the physics behind
adding a third paddle and a wider bucket.  But maybe the drop in auger RPM is not so good.  When it comes to
an acceptable throwing distance.

At this point clearing small amounts of snow with the blower simply allows you a wider clearing path.
Your not blowing anything off the drive your simply blowing it into what will be your next pass.
I have no doubt that what I saw today is not a good example of what this blower is capable off.
But I was expecting it to throw at least as far as my little 3.5hp CR20E that I used earlier.
Have to wait for a deeper snow.

I was also looking at the paddle to housing clearance.  It seemed a little wide to me 1/4-3/8"
So maybe the paddles are in need of replacing as well.
Kind of hoping not, there something like $100.00 a set on Ebay.

Any thoughts?

I've got it set at about 4300

Had the pulley housing off right after I used it to check the belt.  No snow or water behind the cover.

The way it was putting out snow I turned the chute and lowered the deflector to dump the flow
into what would be my next path. Same thing as you were talking about doing.
(Just no shoveling involved).  It did throw better.  But I still wasn't working with that much snow.
I'm still wondering about paddle wear.  Because in addition to the short throwing distance.
It seemed to be kind of churning the snow up front.  Although blowers can tend to do that if
they don't have enough volume coming in as well.
I shot a little video.
It was spur of the moment so it's pretty bad.
You might turn your volume down alittle.

I miss stated something in my first post.  I said the stock SC pulley was smaller than other Toro's
 I meant to say that it is larger.

There isn't a whole lot of information out there about these blowers.
With the little I did find.  Some said they didn't work well, others
bragged about them.
When I took it back in I pulled the side cover to check belt tension.
While I was in there, I pulled the auger pulley and was able to
slip on another one off an CCR 2000.
Two shim washers and it fit perfectly.  Problem is the belt.
As the stock one is way to big because the replacement pulley
is 1 1/2" smaller in dia.  I usually buy all my belts at
Advanced Auto.  But I don't suspect that they will carry a selection of
those ribbed belts.  Like they do in V belts.
I even checked to see if I could install another tension pulley
somewhere to take up the slack in the stock belt  using the
replacement pulley.  But it's just way to big.

As I said before we all know how important auger RPM is.
I did the math (actually I used an online pulley calculator)
using these values.
engine RPM 4200
drive pulley 1.5" dia. (estimated)
driven pulley 7.25 dia.(stock)  = 868 RPM auger shaft speed
driven pulley 5.75"dia. (used on other Toro's) = 1095 RPM auger shaft speed
Guess I'll just have to wait for a big snow and see how it does.
I am going to see if a can find a shorter belt.
Would love to put that smaller pulley on it.
Then hope that the three paddle auger is enough in balance.

I kind of think it needs more snow as well. I've kind of just assumed it was just like other SS
blowers.  But with a larger bucket and engine.  Maybe it's not.
Maybe it was designed for the purpose of dealing with larger snow amounts.
More snow processing capacity, but with a shorter throw distance.
Hence the three paddles, wider bucket and slower auger RPM.
The RPM does need to come up some.

Took a little closer look at things today.
I'm no rocket scientist, but ....
This looks like the main cause of the lack of distance when I
was trying to throw that small volume of snow.

The space is just a little to wide.
Don't you think...
That's a short 3/8" drive extension.
The gap has got to be 1/2"+
This is the worst of the three paddles.  But the other two aren't much better.
With that large of a gap the snow was simply piling up in the housing.
Until the volume was great enough to be limply thrown out.
You can kind or see that happening in the video.