Hi, I know I need to replace something here, I'm just not sure what. ;-)
The aforementioned Ariens snowblower is on its fifth winter. Starts fine, runs fine, generally well taken care of.
In summary: upper stage turns fairly freely when I try to turn it by hand, seems to work OK. First stage doesn't turn freely when turned by hand but just dies under the weight of the snow.
Details: The symptom is that under any itty bitty amount of snow (more than a couple inches), it gets "backed up" -- the first stage stops turning and the unit just jams with snow. It works, but I clear my driveway by putting it at the slowest speed, moving forward about ten feet, stop and wait for it to throw the snow that it has in the mouth, move forward ten feet, stop and wait, so on and so forth. this gets frustrating, as one might imagine!
At first I thought maybe it was the belt, but the upper stage seems to be working OK. That could be however because it's not really getting fed enough snow to be a problem. I can reach in and the upper stage turns fairly freely, which I don't remember being the case in the past. I thought maybe the gearcase, but when stopped, the first stage doesn't turn freely, I would think that if there was a gearcase issue the first stage would be able to slip i.e. if the gears were stripped.
Any ideas what needs to be replaced here? I just can't figure it out! Thank you!
