OT: Snowblowers

[J. Clarke]

Went out to blow snow and, as usual, the damned belt is off the damned snowblower. It's an Ariens, it's not old, and this is a known problem with the model. I've tried all the reasonable fixes that I see on various Web sites and Youtube (I'm not going to go buy a lathe to turn a new redesigned pulley, which one guy who had a lathe did). It used to be that it needed the belt on at the start of the season, but it seems like now it needs it before every storm.

My old Ariens, that some #$%^&*( stole, gave me no trouble.

So, this group has a lot of wisdom about a great many things. My options that I see are to keep fixing the thing until spring and then look for an old Ariens on Craigslist and take my chances with its condition, or bite the bullet and spend for a Honda (if I can find one) on the basis of Japanese engineering and workmanship, or do something else (moving to Florida is not an option).

So, any advice? And yeah, I know I could shovel. I've reached an age and state of decripitude where that's not advisable.

[Clare Snyder]

Which belt? wat kind of belt are you using? Are the bvelt guides properly afjusted? Is the belt jumping, flipping, breaking, shredding?

[J. Clarke]

This is the belt that drives the wheels.

The problem is the design of the drive system. They cheaped out and used the pulley as a clutch--it slides on its shaft and when you engage the drive what happens is that the pully is slid down the shaft to be held against the corresponding piece on the axle by spring tension.

The downside of this is that when the drive is not engaged the pulley that acts as clutch is offset from the pulley on the engine. The result is that the belt easily slips off the pulley. If the thing hasn't been run for a while and the belt has stiffened up a little, off it comes every time.

There is a stop for the pulley and the documented fix is to put some hose on the stop to restrict the movement of the pulley. Well that was not sufficient. I tried a nut on it, still insufficient. And there is a limit to how much it can be shimmed because shimming it too far means that the clutch can't disengage.

The alternative fix is to move the pulley on the engine shaft, but it is made such that the pulley is one big chunk of metal the whole length of the shaft, the other end of that chunk of metal is the drive pulleys for the blower, and there isn't clearance to move it, so the only way to move it is to make a new one with the drive pulley for the wheels shifted to more closely align with the clutch pulley.

The belt is a conventional V-belt, sold by Ariens for this specific purpose. There are no belt guides. The belt seems to come off when the thing is just sitting idle. There's a cover over it and I don't usually take that cover off until the belt has come adrift so don't know the exact progression, but it's fine at the end of one storm and at the start of the next one I have to put the belt back on.

Note that googling "Ariens snowblower drive belt keeps coming off" gets nearly a million hits, and when I run that search the first two are videos which explain the problem more effectively than I can.

[hubops]

Here's one possible fix :

John T.

[J. Clarke]

That's one of the "reasonable fixes" that I've tried to no avail. If it's on Youtube and doesn't involve a lathe I have probably tried it.

[DerbyDad03]

Looks like a dumb design to start with.

It looked like there was a 2nd "fix" towards to the end of the video: the bending of the bracket. Did you try that too?

What about a bigger OD nut? Maybe your SB is more worn than usual and moving that pully just a little closer might help? Epoxy a washer or 2 to the side of the nut as a try.

What about that spring loaded pully? Could it have lost some tension?

(Just wondering if you've actually fixed the known issue but there's a

2nd issue lurking elsewhere.)

What about rigging up a guard that would prevent the belt from jumping off the pully?

re: "The belt seems to come off when the thing is just sitting idle. There's a cover over it and I don't usually take that cover off until the belt has come adrift so don't know the exact progression, but it's fine at the end of one storm and at the start of the next one I have to put the belt back on."

I'd pull that cover as soon as I was done with the next blow. I'd look at the state of the belt at shutdown and then again before startup. Then I'd watch it during startup. I doubt it's falling off while sitting idle - you could hook up a camera to be sure. ;-)

My guess is that it's related to the first cold start after sitting idle. Something stuck, frozen, vibrating, etc. Does it ever come off during a re-start after it's all warmed up? If not, look for a cold start issue like listed above. If yes, still look for something loose, jerking, etc. that occurs while the SB is getting up to speed.

Good luck!

[hubops]

Are you able to dis-engage it s l o w l y ? ... so that the pulley stops spinning before it is fully released to the fully off-set position . Just a thought . John T.

[Clare Snyder]

have you tried this fix?

I worked for an Ariens dealer ages ago and we never had those problems. Seams they have cheapened the mechanism just like MTD and others. I don't have those friction drive problems anymore since I bought a hydrostatic Yamaha. Hydrostatic Hondas also solve the problem Also it appears the steel rod "cage" that bolts to the motor leaves too much space between the cage and the belt which can allow the belt to jump off the small pulley. I think if I still had an ariens I would re-bend that cage to not allow the belt to come out of the groove (long with the adjuster nut fix) Just remember that nut MUST be a prevailing torque type nut - either a Nylock or a "stover" style self locking nut

[Clare Snyder]

Another thing that helps is to use a "hi-flex" notched drive belt - -

[J. Clarke]

I'm not sure I understand what you're suggesting.

While it's running the pulley never stops spinning. The clutch mechanism is that the pulley, while spinning, is pressed against another piece.

[J. Clarke]

That was the second thing I tried.

The thing is, it comes off the big one, not the little one. There really should be some guides on the big one.

[hubops]

OK Sorry - I was thinking that the pulley was engaged by the clutch plate - not the other-way-round . John T.

[J. Clarke]

I may be looking at this the wrong way. For the price of a Honda snowblower I could get a lathe adequate to the task of remanufacturing the drive on this thing.

[Clare Snyder]

The old rof controlled units gave a LOT less trouble. I'f be popping the pan off and seing if there is a way to limit how far the swing plate can move away from the friction wheel. I'm sure there is a block of some sort to limit the movement that you could either afjust or modify to keep the swing plate / pulley assembly from moving too far away from the friction disc, causing the mis-alignment. Mabee add a piece of angle iron to the side of the drive housing with an ajustable stop bolt that blocks the swing plate? Not having one here, or even good pictures - or even exactly what model, makes it like working blind with mittens on - but there HAS to be a simple solution to - what boils down to- a simple mechanical problem of excessive travel.

[Clare Snyder]

And if it is the stiffness of the belt get a hi-flex belt - one with a notched or segmented face. They flex sideways a lot better than either a standard raw-dace or worse yet a wrapped belt.

In the case of the auger belt on my machine it is a BX35 series belt instead of a B35

[krw]

Snowblower? Wazzat?

[Leon]

It was marked OT.. LOL

[Leon]

How about a picture, worth a thousand words. With a pic suggestions might be more focused.

[John Grossbohlin]

Perhaps using two of those Nyloc nuts with a couple flat washers between them would shift the pulley over enough? It might be worth a buck to try it out...

Regarding old snowblowers. My sons moved out so all snow removal was now my job. Knowing this my buddy gave me one that dates from about 1980 that was in his family. It had a lot of little things wrong with it... The exhaust valve was sticking so I gave it a valve job. The auger belt was shot. Many fasteners were missing. The skids were worn through. The auger belt idler pulley bearings were shot. The pull starter wasn't working correctly. The chute was cracked. When all is said and done I'll have about $130 in parts in the thing. That might seem like a lot but a comparable new one (HP and width) is $1,000+ and they are very lightly built with lots of plastic compared to the one I rebuilt. Of course if I was paying someone to do this work I'd have thrown it away as at $100+/Hour plus "retail" for the parts it would have been an expensive rehab. Sort of like with old woodworking tools and machines... you pay for it one way or another. ;~)