Less Fun With Snowthrowers

Well, we thought the drive belt was bad. So we tried to find a replacement drive belt. No luck on finding the exact replacement part for the Troy-Bilt--only a Kevlar substitute of the right size which, after enormous struggle, we finally managed to install.

But you know what? It didn't solve the problem. The augurs were still breaking up the snow, but the throwing part wasn't throwing it. Was it not turning? The throwing mechanism seemed to spin quite freely, and we could see the drive belt engaging the flywheel, that was attached to the shaft that turns the throwing part. But nothing was happening.

So my wife asked, "Is there a pin on the thrower like there is on the augurs?" (This pin is designed to break before an obstruction damages the transmission.) I felt around, and soon found that the thrower was spinning freely because the welds that held it on the shaft had completely broken.

Hmmm. I've had this $599 piece of equipment all of eight days, and it is already broken? So I call up Lowe's and whine, and they tell me where to take it--an authorized repair facility in the Boise area. So how to get this best down there? We had to rent a truck to bring it home last week. Fortunately, we traded in the Equinox for the Trailblazer--and the Troy-Bilt would just fit, with the handles removed.

But how to pick up this beast and get in? It was too heavy for my wife and I to lift all the way up. Fortunately, my wife is a clever person, especially on spatial relationships (quite useful when trying to decode the less than clear instructions for replacing that drive belt) and we turned one of the office work tables that I used for machine tools into a ramp--and rolled the snowthrower up and into the back.

The only real question now is how long it will take for the authorized repair center to get this fixed and back to us. In the meantime, we are using a technique recommended by a law professor who lives in the frozen north--pounding the snow down with the Trailblazer regularly. We still had to do a lot of digging with the snow shovel on some of the deeper drifts. The good news is that I don't have to feel guilty about enjoying a nice dinner out--shoveling snow is quite a workout.