# Snowblower - new auger belt but not throwing well?



## jim2012b (Mar 7, 2012)

I have an 8.5 HP snowblower that is around 7 years old. The auger belt recently busted apart and I had it replaced with new auger belt (brought it to a dependable small engine repair shop). But now I am finding that the machine does not throw snow as far as it did (even dry powdery snow). It seems like it is only throwing half as far as it used to. Two questions:

1) What might be causing this - belt too tight, too loose, other? All the shear pins are fine and the chute is not clogged.

2) Can I check the belt myself?

Thanks!


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## Camden (Mar 10, 2007)

My guess would be a loose belt. If it has a tension pulley go ahead and tighten that but if it doesn't then you'll need a slightly smaller belt. See if you can figure out the OEM part # of the belt and make sure what you have is the same one.


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## leolkfrm (Mar 11, 2010)

spray the auger and blower assembly with good silicone spray....world of differance


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## LEVE (Dec 5, 2005)

You may find that the speed of the impeller is just fine. Likely it's been a long time since that impeller spun at the proper speed. But when the belt broke... that forced the repair. That made you think that it should be as strong as it was when it was new. You may be partly right. If the impeller is running at a proper speed, the problem has to be elsewhere.

Take a look at the 2nd stage impeller. See if the impeller blades are damaged. Sometimes the edges of the blades will curl and round over. This increases the distance between the edge of the impeller blade and the housing. This increase in distance makes it harder for the impeller to throw the snow out the chute. Sometime the damage is so uniform over all the blades, it looks factory.

A cure for this would be Clarence's Snow blower Impeller Kit

I did this type mod to my 20 year old Craftsman blower using $3 worth of off the shelf parts. The snow blower blows twice as far as it did when it was new.


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## jonboat (Dec 17, 2013)

Another thing to take a look at is mechanism engages the auger/impeller. Mine uses two cables (upper and lower), betwen the two is a spring with apair of adjuster nuts that allow you to tighten the cables. The lower cable actually puts tension on the belt (Pully is on a pivoting arm and gets pulled tight against the belt when you depress the auger lever). When my lower cable broke, I did a cob-job so I could finish the driveway and there wasn't enough tension from the lever on the handle to get good tension on the belt, and it was bogging down really easy. I tightened it and it was throwing great until I could track down and order the right part. If you have the owners manual, it should list adjustments, since belts tend to stretch over time and need more tension to work properly.


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