Anyone snowblowah savvy?

I have one of the old 70s orange and white Ariens 924 snowblowers, a 1978 model to be specific. It has an 8hp Tecumseh on it.

The thing was serviced every year at Maestranzi Bros for decades and was very well maintained, but it's got a weird problem bogging down sometimes when it's under a heavy load, after being warmed up. It stalled on me a couple times too, wouldn't start, had to let it set for a little while and it would start back up on the first pull. As a precursor to the problem the engine surges up and down like a car with a bad vacuum leak, and it just doesn't seem to throw or cut through the snow like it should.

I'm thinking it might be an ignition problem like a coil, this last storm part of a snowbank fell on top of the engine and that seemed to exacerbate the problem as it started "doing it" right before that. Last storm I had no problems. The plug's new, I just changed the oil, I always run clean gas through it.

I probably won't bother messing with it until springtime because it still gets the job done and it's too damn cold for me to bother with it, but I thought maybe someone here might have experience with these things. It's a great machine otherwise!

On that note, anyone else have one of these? Everyone tells me to hang onto it.

Hunting is alost always caused by a lean fuel ratio
(partially clogged or misadjusted carb or air leak).
Here...start around pg 26
http://www.cpdonline.com/692509.pdf

Thanks for the tip man, I honestly wasn't sure about that. Then I remembered seeing gas drip out of the carb onto the ground a few times, LOL.

This machine did sit for a few years, the carb probably needs to be gone through.

Between the ethanol and sitting, that carb is overdue for a cleaning/rebuild before it leans out and pops a piston. Snowmobiles are the same way. If you have had a dealer "Go through it" this should have already been done, otherwise they are hacks

Doug

Pooge wrote:

Between the ethanol and sitting, that carb is overdue for a cleaning/rebuild before it leans out and pops a piston. Snowmobiles are the same way. If you have had a dealer "Go through it" this should have already been done, otherwise they are hacks

Doug

The dealer service was done before I got it, my friend traded it to me for painting a plow for him a while back, lol. A friend of a friend apparently/indirectly offered to "tune it up" for me without me even asking, but then that turned into "Yeah, well, it'd probably be like 150 bucks, plus a hundred bucks in pahhts". I promptly said "Yeahhh..no."

Another friend of mine was a snowblower service tech for a hardware store so I'm thinking I'll ask him. It honestly doesn't run that bad at all, this is kind of a freak intermittent thing it does. I keep old gas out of it and I also put a small amount of TCW-3 oil in my fuel to keep it clean. I know there's no air cleaner on these engines for snow apps. but I'm guessing fuel shouldn't drip out of the carb onto the ground. lol

Does it have a primer?
Does the fuel drip only when you prime it? cuz that happens NBD
If its dripping just when it has gas in it the float is ef'd up
probably dirt on the seat, the hunting is adjustment
Problem is theyre usually a beeach to get at