I usually start my 50 year old Airens Sno-Thro (Yes, 50 years old) in our garage with its 120 volt electric starter motor, and only use the pull starter if I have to stop the engine outside for some reason like refilling the fuel tank.
With all the snow and below freezing weather we've been having here in the Boston area lately I've been using the blower quite a bit. A couple of times in the past week I needed to use the pull starter while outside and the line pulled and retracted freely but the starter wouldn't engage the flywheel and crank the engine.
I had to schlep the Airens up our sloping driveway back to the garage by hand to use the electric starter, not a task I enjoy.
The next day I tried the pull starter and it engaged fine. The temperature in the garage where the Airens was sitting then was about 40 F.
I figured that there had to be water in the pull starter which froze while I was using the Airens outside in below 20F temperatures. Because outside air is pulled through the starter area when the engine is running the starter wasn't being warmed up by engine heat.
I took the pull starter off today. There were some beads of water sitting inside it.
Right now the pull starter is sitting in our kitchen oven at 170 F drying out. I'll leave it there for a couple of hours, let it cool off and spray some WD-40 on the moving parts before putting it back onto the Airens.
Anyone else had a similar problem with snow blower pull starters "freezing"? Am I on the right track here?
Jeff