On Tue, 23 Dec 2008 01:04:48 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:


Son got a new Toro snowthrower nearly identical to mine of 20+ years.
It didn't work right, and he was hugely (and justifiably) ****ed. It
wouldn't go, the dealer really didn't seem to give a ****.

I found and downloaded some info from Toro about adjustments. Went
over with truck, prepared to haul his new machine back to the dealer,
twist his tail hard and motivate him to give a ****, but we figured
it might be easier to just fixit. That turned out to be so. Minor
adjustment had it workin' perfect in a few minutes. That used to be a
good dealer, obviously isn't anymore. Sigh. I'll leave it to Son to
decide if he wants to make Toro aware of this, nevermind what I'd do.
It's his deal, not mine. Some long-time readers of RCM might suspect
that I could become this dealer's worst nightmare. They'd be right,
but it ain't my fight.

After that I figgered well geez, maybe fixing mine wouldn't be all
that hard even in my advanced state of retired laziness. Turned out
to be so. Going for it hands dirty, I found the traction drive belt to
be in amazingly good shape but the auger/thrower drive belt was toast.
No wonder Mr. Toro couldn't pee more than a coupla feet. Also found
that the friction wheel in the traction drive was history: *no*
rubber left on thet sucker. Caught that just in time before
metal-to-metal contact chewed the **** out of the drive disc. The
friction wheel is easy to R&R, not so the disc. The trick to getting
that sucker off is the ViseGrips that look like a jar opener.

Fixing those things made it work like new. The engine is also now
working perfectly, I'm not quite sure why. The (original) spark
plug was black, indicating running rich. I did replace a very leaky
shutoff valve between gas tank and carb. Also replaced the spark plug.
Dunno, hit's a mystery. It runs happily, I'm grinning.

Turned out I didn't have much snow to throw this time, because my
neighbor came over and bladed my driveway. Windchill of about -30, he
looked like a cloth-covered lump with no skin showing on his ATV mit
blade. He does that when we get a big dump. We have super
neighbors. They say they do too, go figure.

More snow coming, we're ready for it. Mr. Toro is again able and ready
to kick ass and take names re snow.
Same with my 23 year old Duramark - new belts and friction wheel plus
carb overhaul and I can put my snow over the hedge and almost into the
side street. I hadn't realized how "wimpy" it had become.
Gerry :-)}
London, Canada