btw574

Well went to use the snowblower today and the chute would not rotate. Check power and the switch was working fine. I figured the motor died seeing it does not seem well protected by the plastic cover over it., I took it apart expecting to find a lot of corrosion inside.but was surprised how clean it was. When I took the motor apart I found the carbon brushes were stuck from a little build up of crud inside the motor.keeping them from making contact with the commutator. I took some contact cleaner and a small brush and cleaned everything up good, put it back on and it worked just like new. So if anyone has any problems take the motor apart and check to see if the brushes are stuck, it just may save you some time and money

Well we finally got some snow yesterday and put my mods to he test. I did my house and 3 neighbors and was outside for maybe 4 hours and did not have one time when the snowblower would stop moving. I even took hand fulls of snow and put it on the belt cover and around the engine. I even blew snow into the wind so it would blow back onto the snowblower. All in all the mods worked, now bring on a big snowstorm.

Well I have finished my mods to waterproof this thing to keep it from slipping. I added the new engine plate seal to my snowblower. This is a piece new to this years machines I was told. It took me all of about 1 hour to do.   For people who think water does not get under there they are wrong. There was some rust and paint lifting and salt traces under the engine plate. The new seal goes all the way to the front of the frame and I put a wider piece of weather stripping for the plate on the motor to seal to. The one from the factory was maybe 3/8" wide by 1/4" thick. I replace it with a piece of 3/4 wide by 3/16 thick. The nice thing about the new plate gasket is that when you put the belt cover on it goes under the cover and wraps down the side.

I posted new picture of the engine plate seal. I know this summer there will be some cleaning and painting to take care of some rust spot and paint peeling.                                                                               

It is a 2009 Snapper L1428E  Mfg No 1695681. The gap between the cover and the impeller housing is 3/16".  I looked at this years models and noticed they have a rubber gasket between the frame and motor plate so I had the dealer order it for me. It was just under $8 for it. This summer I ran water on the top of the cover and found water would get through the open hole in the frame. I was just going to silicon all the holes but I figured this would be a better solution to this problem

My idea for my fix on the cover came from when I saw the belt cover on the new Ariens and noticed they have a lip molded on theirs that goes on top on the impeller housing so I just figured out a way to do it to my cover.                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Well last year had nothing but slipping problems with the drive and seeing B&S has not come out with a new cover so I solved it on my own. Last year I tried using just weather stripping but water would still get past  seeing the cover is pretty flimsy. I built the piece out of a piece of 3/4 inch  ABS plastic and epoxied it to the cover. It does add alot of strenght to the cover and keeps it from flexing. My next project is to add the new rubber gasket that goes between the frame and engine plate.

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