Hi all. I haven't been on the site for quite a while. But I'd bought a (well-used) Ariens ST824 last season, and with help from the good folks here, went through it and got it adjusted and fixed-up as best I could.
The blizzard in the northeast last week gave me my first chance to really use it. Before that, it's just been a small storm or two. But this one brought about 25" in our town, per the news, and it came overnight, so I had to clear the full amount. It was pretty dry and light, but there was still a lot of it.
Fired it up, gave it a minute to warm up, and drove out into the driveway. It started sputtering a bit, and I realized I had the choke still on a click. After that, it just churned through everything. The snow was maybe 1" or so short of the top of the auger intake. That's probably the deepest snow I've tried to clear with a blower. I just kept it in first gear, and chewed my way along.
It did a great job. You could hear it was really working, but it never gave me any trouble. I'm getting used to the auger and drive handle positions being reversed, vs my MTD. And I'm starting to appreciate some of the nice features of the machine. Having the chute-aiming knob at user-level is really nice (on the MTD, it was down on the left, awkward to re-aim while blowing). And I love the differential feature of the transmission, that's fantastic. Keeping it tracking straight during a run is much easier, and turning around at the end of a pass is just a quick swivel.
My machine isn't much to look at (paint is in rough shape), and there are some outstanding items, like worn areas on the axle shafts (so my replacement bearings fit loosely on the shaft). I still need to try and address those. But for a first real test, I was very happy with how it performed. Thank you to everyone here for your help last year!
This message was modified Feb 18, 2013 by RedOctobyr
