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Earlier this week, I learned that Nextdoor.com is good for something other than reading about Karens bitching about the ice cream truck. I came across this ad, with a single not great pic: Although the timing of this is terrible due to current life events, my current snowblower is a plastic "homeowner grade" one from 1994, and is kind of falling apart. And the price was right on this one. So, I emailed the guy to inquire about it (not really expecting much), and he somehow still had it(!) After a little back and forth, I went the next day on my lunch break and picked it up. Turns out, it's a 1970 model, and it looks to be in amazing shape. No rust anywhere, all of the paint was still shiny, he even had tire chains and the original owner's manual. It fired up on the first pull when he went to start it, although he did confess he had had it running for a couple minutes that morning. He then told me it usually takes 5 - 10 pulls from cold to get going. It's all steel and built like a brick shithouse, which is nice. I'm pretty sure he'd had it since new. More pics:  I hope I look this good when I'm almost 50, god drat   I looked up the serial number on a snowblower sperg website, which indicates it's a '70 model. Having never had anything like this to deal with in the past, I noticed that the rear wheels seem to be locked up. By that I mean you can push / pull the machine from front to back, but the wheels appear to be locked together, preventing you from actually turning it without sliding one of the tires against the ground. Is this normal, or am I missing something? I haven't had time to gently caress around with it much at all, since I had to get back to work when I grabbed it and it went straight into a storage unit I'm keeping for the time being, so I don't have it handy to play with. I only tried moving it around with the motor shut off and the gear selector in neutral (maybe it behaves differently with a gear selected, or if the motor is running?). I guess it's a Tecumseh motor - does anyone know what I'd be looking at for parts availability on something like this, or will I end up replacing it with a HF motor if / when the time comes? I assume I can probably get basic replacement / maintenance parts, but would be curious about bigger non-maintenance type items.
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Sep 27, 2019 02:15
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 10:51 |
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sharkytm posted:There's usually a "diff lock" that lives in one or both wheel hubs. The one on my Ariens is a pull-style, but some are twist, like the old locking hubs. I see something on the wheel hub of your photo. Ah, that makes sense. I didn't think to look for anything like individual wheel / hub locks.  I knew that Tecumseh had ceased operations a number of years back, which is why I was curious about parts availability. Thanks for the tip to avoid running it on inclines, I wouldn't have thought of that. It seemed to run pretty well when the guy fired it up when I came to pick it up, but I'm planning on digging into it more when I'm in a new place, hopefully sometime in November.
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Sep 27, 2019 03:50
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