MGreiner

The last snow here in Iowa, I was attacking the EOD and the chute fell off of my older deere 824.  I am missing on of the chute clamps, I ended up finishing the blowing by using a pair of trusty vice grips to hold the chute in place.  Any one know a hardware store equivelant I could use?  Found these on ebay but 14$ for some chunks of metal (free shipping though).  I have heard that there might be a Ariens look a like.  Any ideas.

-mark

 http://www.ebay.com/itm/John-deere-snow-blower-chute-clamps-726-826-1032-/170975459188?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27ceee7774  

My 826 came with the same problem. It took alot of penetrating oil and muscle to remove the outer/inner shafts apart.  Lots of diesel fuel to clean up the gears and lots of freash grease on the shafts;  now works as intended.

My problem is we are in a drought, havent mowed in 4 weeks.  The only things I've gotten done is a rebuild on a Toro personalpace tranny. Would like to test it in some GREEN grass.

just my 2 cents, it says right on the sta-bil bottle that it's only good for 2 years after breaking the seal, so you need to check on how long you've had it.

I dont have anything to actually test the compression but after the oil change I "drove" it around the block engaging the auger on some leaves and it all sounded good.  It has a tecumseh engine that has a diaphram (first I've ever seen), had some fuel leakage but somehow seemed to fix itself.  I figured I dont know how much abuse it took when it stopped working so I'm not too concerned on the carb.  otherwise it looks like all original paint, only mission one warning sticker and I love the "chrome"like Ariens branding on it.