Modding my snowblower
 

We all know grille blocks are a good thing right? I put a vinyl sheet magnet (borrowed from the side of the fridge) over the cooling air intake on the recoil starter housing to kill the airflow for the first few minutes- gets up to temp quicker; allows choke to be opened sooner, saves fuel and engine wear. :thumbup:

I may even do that with Mowmar this summer too.

http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps6c7eb050.jpg

I dont know, since its all air cooled maybe better to let it "warm up" on its own to avoid any stress fractures by parts warming up too fast. Those cast pot metal engine arent that strong.

We got a har bor freight 800 watt generator and it can take a minute or 2 for it to warm up and for the idle to stablze before applying a load.

As long as the electrical components do not suffer.

As you can see a few intake slots are open so there's a slight breeze instead of a gale force wind.

It starts 1st pull every time but I'd stall it by prematurely opening the choke. Traditionally the fix for such cold bloodedness would be to adjust the carb a skosh richer but I liked the notion of it being on the ragged edge of lean- and it runs well when warm- so decided to enhance warm-up like we do on our vehicles. The thing would be to not forget that block there but it's right in my face so I haven't.

This all sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Cars run at light load most of the time whereas snow machines are at full load most of the time with no ability to richen or lean the mixture. I suggest keeping the mods to the cars.

Dah, the magnet comes off after a few minutes.

Good idea Frank.
So this is, in effect, a manually operated air cooled engine thermostat.

Ed Zachary.

He he he. Got it.

I can push the choke in on my snowblower almost immediately. Does that mean I am running it too rich, or does it merely mean that I live below the arctic circle?

Snowblower engines normally have the intake coming from a warm place. They also do not have air filters.

Warm air makes carburetors run richer, so snowblower engines are set up to run lean when cold.

Mine uses less fuel than yours ;)

http://www.nationalplastics.co.uk/ex...now-Shovel.jpg

I used that kind up until this year, and we get a lot of snow!

Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.

Hmm. Grill blocks for cars work in the cold because it was designed to cope with heavy loads under high ambient temperature, and is overdimensioned in cold conditions.

The snow blower on the other hand is probably not optimized for tropical temperatures. I havent been to the subtropics very often, so bear with me, but I never saw snowblowers being used there at all.
So it may just be that the engine and its warm up time were designed just for winter conditions, and rushing the warm up puts it in a situation that was not anticipated by its designers. It will probably be fine, but you are venturing where no snowblower has gone before.

Why not mod your snow blower into, er, nothing - and buy a shovel.

And I thought we brits were soft ;)

Are you thick? I've been shoveling exclusively for decades. I was just given this thing- put gas in it three times now; still shovel for the light snows. I've put way, way more energy into that shovel than I have into this blower! Eventually shoveling three foot deep snow gets old, just like my carcass. My favorite snow is that hard, heavy, icy, lumpy, dense crap the plow loves to fill the first 10' of my driveway in with every other day.

I like my engines to warm up fast- the moving parts like each other better that way, the oil gets kicked around more, and I can open the choke fully sooner and open the throttle all the way.

All I've done is the same thing that's been on all my Corvairs and VWs for the last 50 years: slow the cooling air down from a gale force to a breeze for the first few minutes when it's cold. Sheesh.

I bet this is the easiest of all to make an "EV". All you need is a motor to turn 3500 rpms, a battery, switch and charger. :thumbup:

I've thought about that... actually I thought of using a/c and a cord; since I don't have to cover the entire yard like an electric mower would, I think the inconvenience of managing the cord wouldn't be so bad. Plus batteries hate cold.

Hrmm.....

A 180lb male shoveling snow for an hour burns about 500 calories per hour (reference from sparkpeople.com)... a Jr bacon cheeseburger is $1.29 (reference from a local Wendy's) and is 400 calories (reference from Wendy's.com)... so it's $1.61 per hour. The average snow shovel holds about 4/10 cubic foot of snow. A cubic foot of snow weighs 15 lbs (both referenced from http://dailyperk.perkstreet.com/how-to-shovel-snow/). So each shovel will remove about 6lbs of snow which means it would take 334 shovel fulls to move one ton of show. If the man can shovel 1 scoop for ever 4 seconds it would take approximately 22 minutes to move one ton of snow. This means if the person worked one hour straight taking 4 seconds to remove one ton of snow that person would move 2.72 tons of snow per hour.

An average 4 stroke snow blower can run about 3.5 hours on 1.5 gallons of fuel... which means at lets say $4 per gallon fuel would mean it would use $1.71 worth of fuel per hour. That snow blower can move approximately 35 tons of snow per hour.

(Reference from powerequipment.Honda.com)

This means the human would have to work 12.87 hours to move the same amount of snow. In theory if the human could do that work and consume only jr bacon cheese burgers it would cost $20.72..... plus the person would die of exhaustion...which is bad.

Just this morning I removed 8 inches of snow from 250 feet of driveway, including the plow turds, plus a path to the gas meter. Took a little over a half hour with my 10 hp Ariens.

Then I went out for an hour on my snowshoes.

With a shovel, I would still be shoveling.

In the days of the Model T, most (if not all) homeowners didn't have snowblowers. ;)

That's true. Back then most if not all homeowners could find young backs that would shovel their driveway for a nickle :D

Not sure how eco this is, but I use the snow/ice melt and or rock salt. It depends on what they sell after the fact at the local stores for a few dollars a bag. I just throw it on the walk way and driveway before a storm or right after it starts. Depending on how hard and fast it snows it can build up, but soon as it stops the snow/ice vanishes leaving a clear walk way.

T's had so much ground clearance they didn't need a clear path :thumbup:

But you all have trucks :D

I could simply drive the truck... but I don't.

And skinny tires to carve down through to the pavement. But I bet they still utterly sucked in the snow, else why would somebody have made this... :p

http://flipacars.com/pics/Ford/ford-...version-04.jpg

The real problem is that we need to EV Frank Lee's arms. Sure, sure, the conversion would be incomplete until we also convert his back and legs, but those are mere details! :D

I always wanted to use a flamethrower. Sadly, people usually say "You mean a snowblower." They tell me that, not even considering that I think that a giant ball of fire would be entertaining, if not useful, but I figure that if I melt the snow and then evaporate the water, it would be perfect!

Like that "CAT" suit Sigourney used on Alien? Yeah, I would TOTALLY DIG THAT!!! (PUN!) :thumbup:

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http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r...psc419087c.jpg
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The latest foot cleared by shovel. Happy? I am! Good workout.

Do you really need a blower for that ? My drive is about the same length overall (including all the parking places) and I do it and my elderly neighbours drive with a shovel each time - no fuel wasted except for cups of tea and Hobnobs.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u7fXSFLz2J...00/hobnobs.jpg

I would like to add that I am completely unfit too ;)

We don't get a foot each time mostly, but the other year we did and I ran out of places to put it - about 5 piles that high all not melting until May.

Sorry but I think this is the driveway version of the America "self-cleaning" oven.

Sorry- forgot to point out the driveway is big enough to fit 10 vehicles (big ones, including RVs and that flatbed trailer); 15 if I go three abreast which I did when I had roommates. I don't know how many feet that is. Then there are the trails leading past the meter for the readergirl to read then continuing on to the edge of the woods, and the other one to the burn barrel, also at the edge of the woods.