Talldog

First thing I would try is to change the fuel filter if it has one (it might be in the gas tank itself).  If that doesn't work, I would clean the carb.  You said the blower was working ok before it ran out of fuel so most likely it's either the filter or the carb.

Before you dig into it, get some new fuel line because the old line has probably hardened and you might ruin it taking it off.

You guys got it a lot worse than we did, but we still got about 6" of the real heavy wet stuff in Northern Illinois. I think this year is a record as far as snowfall goes. I was afraid that we weren't going to get much snow this year since I bought the new Simplicity. I wish I could get this lucky in timing the stock market.

When I was a teenager, I bought a used Snowmobile. I kept it a few years, but because we weren't getting much snow, I sold it. The next winter after I sold it was the winter of 78-79, nuff said.

I still really like the new machine and haven't had any problems yet although the electric chute rotator makes me nervous. As I said in a previous post, I wish Simplicity would provide a manual backup.

I haven't had this problem. I do store it in an attached garage, but the garage is not heated. One of the first things I did after getting the machine was to smear some synthetic grease on the gear and teeth on the chute.

I love the electric chute control, but I do wish that there was a manual backup.

Just wanted to add that you can't really tell by "looking" at the piston/cylinders. You need to check compression with a tester. They aren't too expensive, or maybe you could rent one from an auto parts store. If the compression is low, it might be a bad head gasket also.