ABoston

Well I finally had time to look deeper into the issue.
I took the bottom plate of the unit and found my answer.  There were broken strips of hard rubber on the bottom of the plate (which must have been the cause of the noise I was hearing) and looking to see where the strips came from, it was the Friction Wheel !

I replaced that and the Ariens moves nice and smooth again.

The bucking had to be caused by the missing pieces of rubber on the wheel.

I've had my ST824 924 Series Ariens for just over 10 winters now and just yesterday had my first problem with it.

We had about 11" of wet snow dumped on us and as I was going thru the snow the Ariens started making a sounds like loose keys jangling.
Didn't think much about it since I thought I would take a look for loose objects after I finished.
I stopped for a while and when I started it back up again I put it in gear, 1st gear, and engaged the traction drive clutch.  When I did the Ariens seemed to buck but went forward anyway.  I knew something was up at this point.  I engaged the clutch again but this time the unit moved only a little bit while bucking again.  Dis-engaged the clutch and re-engaged and this time the Ariens wouldn't move at all.  Not even in reverse.
 I stopped the engine and took off the belt cover and though the belts were a little loose and probably could stand replacement after 10 seasons, they didn't seem as bad as I thought they might. I had the engine running and engaged the clutch and could see the belts turning the pulley.

I pulled open the owners guide and in looking at the Troubleshooting section found a section on adjusting the "Traction Drive Clutch". That looked to be the answer. So I adjusted the clutch and started it up again.  Well you know the story...it moved but still did the bucking.

So now I'm not sure what it is.  I will probably replace the belts but after more reading in the manual I'm wondering if its what they call the "Friction Wheel".

Has anyone run across this type of problem before?

-AB