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

Hello
I'm a first time poster here and a first time snowblower user.
I recently bought Ariens ST 30 LE deluxe snowblower.
It is a very nice machine and well built and with the Briggs & Stratton 342 cc engine it has more power then I will probably ever need.
The first snow storm here in Connecticut was about 7 to 8 inches of light powdery snow.
The snowblower worked as advertised and did a good job on my driveway which is 135 feet long and 18 feet wide.
I think that throwing distance of up to 50 feet is a little bit of marketing exaggeration, my machine will throw snow
approximately 30 to 35 feet which is more than adequate to my driveway.
The last storm we had this week it snowed a bout 1 1/2 inches and then rained the rest of the night making
a slushy mess to snow blow. It rendered my machine about useless to this task as it continually clogged
the chute no matter how slow I tried to let the auger do its job.
As in many of the reads in the site it seems that the low-speed is too fast for the auger to process this wet snow.
Has anyone ever tried to change the pulley ratio between the engine drive pulley and the transmission drive pulley
to slow down the forward motion of the machine.
I realize it would cut down on the top speed of the machine which I doubt I would ever use anyway.
I am probably spoiled because for the past forty years I have used a pickup truck and a plow to clear this driveway
but the old truck has given up the ghost and pricing something to replace it it seemed a snowblower would be
a more economical answer. I'm sure in the future with more normal snow conditions this machine will more than do the job.
Any suggestions to help out the slush conditions would all be appreciated as a new snowblower operator I am
still learning the ropes of snow blowing.
Regards
                Ed

Check out the Clarence Impeller kit.  Check the link below:

http://smllengns.tripod.com/

+1 on the impeller kit,  It will make throwing slush much easier. 

Also you can probably adjust the shift linkage to give you a little slower first gear by moving the contact point of the friction wheel to the drive wheel closer to center in first gear. this is pretty easy on most friction disk type machines.

Changing pulley would be an option, but i doubt you need to go to that extreme when a simple adjustment should do the trick as far a slowing the machine down and the clarance kit will do wonders on slush

carl

Right on borat and carib.....the Clarence kit sure did the job for me, haven't clogged the chute since and the throw distance is impressive. I like it when the neighbors watch me blow snow now. What a RUSHHHHHHHHH!!!         

Where I live in the lower Hudson valley we got Tuesday night all snow of the very heavy kind as the temps were at the 32 degree mark. I also installed the impeller kit of a home made variety and works flawlessly. I have an Ariens 7524E and it pumps out anything I feed it.This last snow went at least some 40 feet and it sure was the heavy stuff. Go for it. Now if it's still under warranty it will void it. Best of Luck