scooterguy

Mech12, I can't say that I agree with you.  I bought this unit and assembled it out of the box myself.  The issue with both of these machines came from the factory, it had nothing to do with HD.  I'll take a $300 savings and a better return policy anyday from HD.  If you bought this at your average shop, you'd pay through the nose.  IF you had a defective unit they'd only fix yours.  HD would have continued to give me a new unit until they ran out...and then they'd send you to another store.  In my opinion, this mishap had nothing to do with HD. 

Is that what you call that thing...a shepard's hook.  I have had a hell of a time trying to describe this thing.  Anyways, the "shepard's hook" was installed upside down.  This resulted in the cable being about a 1/4 to 1/2 inch too tight.  cheers

So after many days of grief, I discovered that the connector at the end of the cable that attaches to the assembly drive was installed upside down from the factory on both units.  I undid the cable from the clutch handle, turned the attachment around and viola!  I wonder how many serial no's will be affected by this mess???  Certainly not the safest error on the factories part!

So I go to home depot and decide to go all out and buy the Ariens 11528...which I don't really need by the way...isn't that always the way it is?  So anyways, I bring home the first one, pull it out of the box, assemble it and start it.  I start to run the checks and see that the auger/impeller still turn at full speed even when the right clutch/brake is released.  In the manual it tells you to check the length of the spring depressed and released...the machine is within tolerance.  I open up the belt cover and start tinkering with the idler.  I move it to the other hole closer to the sheath, tighten everything and try her again.  Same thing.  I load up the dud and bring it back to HD and request a new one as it has only been 12 hours of ownership.  They give me another one, I bring it home and do the setup again out of the box...this time in a quarter of the time.  Can you believe the exact same problem???  Am I missing something here?  Basically in both cases, when the clutch is depressed nothing really happens.  Obviously the brake is not making contact.  Anyways, in my opinion this is pathetic.  It is my first blower, I was told to buy an Ariens, but this doesn't sit well with me.

Maybe I should buy the used 10 year old Ariens 1032 I looked at last week...they certainly don't make things like they used to!!!