Snowblower blues...or stupidity wins.

Arm

Arm

US Veteran
Joined
May 15, 2016
Messages
409
Reaction score
1,499
Location
Pa
So the other year I bought a brand new Airens Platinum 24, electric start, snow cab 369cc engine....top of the line machine.
Needed to use it today, cold as an icicle in my shorts....darn thing would not start. Spent over an hour and a half freezing my fingers trying everything to get it to start, no luck, drove to the parts store to buy a new spark plug...figured that must be the problem, whew, roads were pretty slippery. Get home and install the plug using my frozen fingers....no joy. Get back in the house, get myself a hot coffee, my wife says to me...is there gas in it? I grumbled...of course there is! Got to thinking about it, went back into the garage, remove the gas cap, oh, oh.....bone dry. Put fuel in it, started right up! So the wife comes out to the garage...she heard it running, what was wrong? I just mumbled, bad connection...I did not mention it was my brain. Wow, I love that woman.
 
Register to hide this ad
Neighbor in England bought a car for almost nothing because of owner brain fade. It had failed to start for the owner's wife so she wanted it gone. Turned out the contact breaker screw had worked loose and there was no spark. Easy fix and profit for my neighbor.
 
Don't Forget

At the end of the snow season, siphon off most of the gas, add a few drops of fuel stabilizer (available at the chain auto parts stores), crank it up and allow it to run until it runs out of gas. Next season, you'll start on the first crank or two and thank me.
 
Reminds me of something that happened to me.
Out here in the mountains of West Virginia, it's not uncommon for the power to go out. Sometimes for up to a week at a time.
We have a 5000watt gas powered portable generator in our garage and I like to run it occasionally.
One fine summer day, I go out to crank it up and it just won't start.
My wife asks, "does it have gas?" I replied, "of course it does."
After she left I took a closer look. Yeah it had gas but the petcock was in the "off" position. I turned it to the "on" position and it started in 2 pulls.
[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCmuATH2yzo[/ame]
 
My next door neighbor's husband passed this last October and she asked be to get her Sears riding mower that has a snow blower mounted on it, with a cab on it to get it running. Her son had a head start on me and he shouldn't have messed with it. I had to put it back together, looked like he was taking the carb off ???? then left it. I put some fuel stabilizer in it and a new gas filter, Charged the battery. And it runs. But here's the kicker. She's 75 years old and never run the outfit before. She learned how to run it with a little help at first. Wont let me run it for her. Now that's something.
 
I use non ethanol gas in my snow blower, lawn mower and chain saw as well as my car. The way it was explained to me by a small engine mechanic years ago is this. Ethanol is plant oil, After it sits long enough it gets thick and slimy. He said in gas the ethanol separates from petroleum when it sits and this is why a lawn mowers that sits over the winter often won't start.
The gas station I go to has almost all non ethanol pumps. In the summer there are lines to the pumps. I think everyone that cuts lawns for a business is there filling up their gas cans and mowers.
 
Arm said:
So the other year I bought a brand new Airens Platinum 24, electric start, snow cab 369cc engine....top of the line machine.
Needed to use it today, cold as an icicle in my shorts....darn thing would not start. Spent over an hour and a half freezing my fingers trying everything to get it to start, no luck, drove to the parts store to buy a new spark plug...figured that must be the problem, whew, roads were pretty slippery. Get home and install the plug using my frozen fingers....no joy. Get back in the house, get myself a hot coffee, my wife says to me...is there gas in it? I grumbled...of course there is! Got to thinking about it, went back into the garage, remove the gas cap, oh, oh.....bone dry. Put fuel in it, started right up! So the wife comes out to the garage...she heard it running, what was wrong? I just mumbled, bad connection...I did not mention it was my brain. Wow, I love that woman.
Click to expand...


[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AynXoLjYrKc[/ame]

:D :D
 
I use premium gas, although it has ethanol. I put fuel stabilizer in it and only get gas the day before the first predicted snow fall. At the end of the season anything left over goes into the gas tank of my truck.

When I do my end of season tune up and PM, I put 50:1 two stroke fuel into the tank and run it for a few minutes. Then every month or so during the off season I start it up and run it for about five minutes.

Starts every time when I need it and runs like a top.

Ethanol also likes to eat at seals in the fuel line and carburetor if it sits for a while.



Mr Pokeyman said:
I use non ethanol gas in my snow blower, lawn mower and chain saw as well as my car. The way it was explained to me by a small engine mechanic years ago is this. Ethanol is plant oil, After it sits long enough it gets thick and slimy. He said in gas the ethanol separates from petroleum when it sits and this is why a lawn mowers that sits over the winter often won't start.
The gas station I go to has almost all non ethanol pumps. In the summer there are lines to the pumps. I think everyone that cuts lawns for a business is there filling up their gas cans and mowers.
Click to expand...
 
One summer about 10 years ago I was working at a lake cabin in Canada. In the back among the trees was an old Jeep (I am a big Jeep fan). I asked the owner what was wrong with the Jeep. He let out a disgusted, but unintelligible grumble. A day or so later I asked again, and eventually got out of him that it didn't run, and he was going to tow it to the junk yard. Then he said, "If you can get it running, you can have it."

Later on I ran a power cord over to it so I could hook up a battery charger and see if the engine would turn over. As soon as I opened the hood I noticed a huge ball of corrosion over the battery terminals. I said to myself, "...could it be...???"

I cleaned the terminals and it started right up! :) :) :)
 
Mr Pokeyman said:
I use non ethanol gas in my snow blower, lawn mower and chain saw as well as my car. The way it was explained to me by a small engine mechanic years ago is this. Ethanol is plant oil, After it sits long enough it gets thick and slimy. He said in gas the ethanol separates from petroleum when it sits and this is why a lawn mowers that sits over the winter often won't start.
The gas station I go to has almost all non ethanol pumps. In the summer there are lines to the pumps. I think everyone that cuts lawns for a business is there filling up their gas cans and mowers.
Click to expand...

For years I've had problems in the spring. This spring I got tired of it and took a pressure washer in for repair. The mechanic told me it was the ethanol gas causing the problems and the best thing to do was find non ethanol gas and use it.

I drained the gas out of all my yard equipment, found a place to buy non ethanol fuel and haven't had a problem yet.

You can save yourself a lot of problems just by switching to non etanol gas.
 
The Platinum is a nice machine, but is not their top of the line machine. They have a professional series, and yes they all need gas to run.

Since the ethanol gas came around, I have noticed that my tanks are staying cleaner, also that they are usually empty. It evaporates off while the machine is not in use. Use a machine park it, a week later it won't start and is out of gas, and if you look inside it is bone dry. I don't ever remember seeing a tank bone dry with the old gas. They always had a 1/16 inch or so of gas that never went away.

It is no coincidence the feds mandated gas cans not have vents then mandate a gas formula that evaporates away.

Aside from some funky fuel line leaks, and one tank seam that failed, I have had zero fuel problems since the switch to ethanol.
 
Mr Pokeyman said:
I use non ethanol gas in my snow blower, lawn mower and chain saw as well as my car. The way it was explained to me by a small engine mechanic years ago is this. Ethanol is plant oil, After it sits long enough it gets thick and slimy. He said in gas the ethanol separates from petroleum when it sits and this is why a lawn mowers that sits over the winter often won't start.
The gas station I go to has almost all non ethanol pumps. In the summer there are lines to the pumps. I think everyone that cuts lawns for a business is there filling up their gas cans and mowers.
Click to expand...


As a old time gear head I only use high test none E. gas in my Corvette, boat, Atv and all the many two stroke tools and toys I have. Same for the portable gas generator, only None E. but now with a whole house propane stand by Generac that is now a moot point!

Yes it costs more and up till a couple years ago none E gas was at least 25 miles away. Now the two local (5 miles) stations have it in premium. I do use the 10% ethanol in our daily drivers (16 Toyota Tundra 4x4 and wife's RAV 4)
 
When I first bought my current car I put regular e'gas in it and it ran rough. I went to the dealership and was told my engine required high test gas, I put a tank of premium in and it ran good but I wasn't happy with the mpg. I then put non eth in for about 30 cents more a gallon. My mpg improved and continued to improve over the next couple of fill ups. So I pay $3.59 a gallon right now which makes me cringe, but, I think it's worth it.
The dealership told me that ethanol had damaged a lot of the older cars when it first came out so there were some changes made to the engines and the modern engines are no longer effected by ethanol. If that is true, then I don't see why my car, a 2014, gets better mpg with non ethanol.
 
Same law that dictates that no matter what direction I ride my bike in, it's always into the wind.


Donn said:
All I know about my snowblowers is no matter the wind direction or which way the chute's aimed, the snow WILL blow back in my face. Not a law of physics, but it should be.
Click to expand...
 
As my dad would have said checking the gas is on the first page. I heard about that first page with every dumb thing I did no matter what it was.
 
A few ago during my wood cutting era,
I drove about 50 miles East to cut wood on some State Land.
Scrub cedar and piñon trees had been doziered into long piles.
You just backed up and started sawing.
I’m sawing away when I notice this guy and his son standing close by and watching me.
So I put down my saw and said, hello, what’s going on?
There were probably a hundred or so folks out there, and everybody else was sawing wood!
The guy finally embarrassingly mumbled that he forgot to bring any fuel.
So I filled up his saw.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top