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?

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.

The paddle is worn down half way through the
wear indicator hole.
As wide as the gap is, I didn't expect to see any of the indicator hole.