Snow Blower

OK, it hasn't got a Turbo and it's only got 5 Happy Power but there is something deeply satisfying about working on and getting an old piece of motorised equipment up and running after a number of years lying around outside out of function.

Much to my wife's disapproval I couldn't turn down the offer of 2 non functioning, identical snowblowers which another hoarder had finally been persuaded by his wife to dispose of. I picked them up a few weeks before Christmas.

Myself and "the other cold one", who was part of the family crowds over Christmas had a couple of sessions on one of the units out in the workshop and after an amount of dismantling came to the conclusion that there was no spark and the Magneto/ignition system was defunct.

After all the Christmas chaos was over I managed to track down a local workshop that specialises in Garden machinery, old and new. I came away with 2 used Magnetos to try, a new set of points and a new spark plug. Fitted the best looking Magneto and the other bits and got a spark first time.

Engine still wouldn't fire so I poured a little bit of fuel into the cylinder and it fired first time, but wouldn't keep running. Pouring fuel into the carb had the same effect. So it was off with the carb, a quick dismantle and clean out with petrol, put it all back together and off it went. A little bit of fiddling with the mixture and off I went blowing snow.

Since then it's been put to good use. Hope to tidy it up a bit more once the seasons over. I'll probably give it a lick of paint and a little bit more of a service to get everything working properly (it's quite difficult to disengage the blower drum and it doesn't always disengage the wheels when you put it in stop). In the mean time, I'll cope with it as it is.