Snow Blower

      I pulled the rope.  Nothing happened.  So I pulled three or four more times and nothing happened.  I rechecked everything, switch on, choke lever pulled out.  A couple of more pulls convinced me I needed to do something else.

    You know, “insanity, doing the same thing and expecting different results.”  It had always started before.  It started the first time I laid eyes on it in the parking lot of the senior citizens center in Brighton.  Ralph backed his pickup tailgate-to-tailgate to mine.  We both clambered up into the pickup beds.  Ralph grabbed the starter rope, gave it a pull, and the old gal started right up.

       There was a story behind the snow blower.  I forget the details, but somebody gave Ralph the machine because it didn’t run.  Ralph, the ultimate mechanic, tinkered with it and it ran perfectly.  He had bought a new bigger model and had no need for this one.

      I backed the blower out of his pickup, across the tailgates, into mine.  I handed Ralph $25, and I had a snow blower. 

      It started many times after that.  It started the time I took it to Colorado for the ill fated “quilt retreat” when I had to get those lawyer gals to the airport in Denver after a blizzard.  It started fine when we moved to Colorado.  It started just fine after sitting for over a year in the farmyard when I loaded it up and brought it to Loveland.

      It started last spring when I decided the snow season was over and I moved it out of sight in the back yard.  Here came January.  It was the last day of a nice three-day warm spell.  We had to be in Niwot at 1 p.m. 

     I had plenty of time to crank it up and move it back around to the front of the house, hiding in the landscape bushes out of sight from the street.  There it would be ready when the warm spell ended later that night with four to eight inches of snow forecast for Loveland.

      “Doing something different” mainly meant pulling the spark plug and dropping a few drops of gasoline  in the spark plug hole of the Briggs and Stratton engine.  Grabbing the spark plug socket and a filling a syringe with gas  took a few minutes.  Again I pulled the rope.  Nothing.

      A few more pulls and I had “Old Man River” running through my mind:  “Pulling them ropes, getting no rest ‘til the judgment day.”  No more of that insanity.  Again I pulled the spark plug.  This time, I carefully held the spark plug grounded against the aluminum head.  Gingerly, I held the plug wire in my right hand to keep the plug grounded.  I pulled the rope with my left hand.

      Gingerly, because I have substituted for the spark plug sometimes trying this maneuver.  The old magneto can give you a pretty good shock if you provide a more suitable circuit than a faulty spark plug.

      It was a sunny day.  With both hands occupied, I had to lean down to get close enough to see if a spark arced across the plug gap.  Several pulls later, I was pretty sure there was no spark. I saw no arc.  I  heard no snap of electricity jumping a gap.  I was in little danger of getting a shock.

      Checking out the ignition system on a Briggs and Stratton engine requires minor surgery. You have to pull the flywheel off to locate the breaker points.  No time for that.  Niwot awaited.

     I had to admit defeat.  I surrendered my sword by locking the gate I had unlocked before I ever tried to start the engine.  There was my fatal mistake.  By unlocking the gate, I had assumed success in moving the machine to the front yard.  Always a mistake to make such assumptions.  Murphy’s Law, the joy of the  gods thwarting human endeavor, whatever.  It happened again.     

     About seven that evening, we returned from Niwot.  It was still a warm (for January) night.  It would be no trick at all to see a spark now.  I grabbed a wrench, removed the plug, grounded it, gave the rope a good pull, not needing to bend over now to see.  Two or three pulls later and the diagnosis was confirmed:  no spark.

      A week or two later, a warm day came with many other obnoxious jobs I could avoid by spending some time outdoors.  The predicted snowstorm had come, with less than four inches.  It was melting but not gone.

     I lifted up the right wheel of the snow blower and kicked a big garbage bag under it.  During the teardown, some parts inevitably escape and fall to the ground.  It’s easier to hunt for them on a garbage bag than in the slushy snow.  (I managed to lose a screw, even with the precaution.)

     Two cowlings have to be removed on this particular Briggs and Stratton, one covering the fuel system including the carburetor (no air filter on this machine, the cowling serving to protect the air intake from inhaling snow or other impurities in the air).

     The second cowling covers the finned flywheel and holds the recoil starter.  They came off, no problems.  I couldn’t remember exactly how to get the flywheel “nut” off.  I seemed to remember it was left-handed threads.  ( I recalled an incident in ancient history when I had cracked a neighbor’s lawnmower flywheel trying to pull it off with a gear puller, without taking the nut off.)

     Can’t remember?  No problem.  U-Tube to the rescue.  A guy with two fancy flywheel wrenches installed one with levers into the fins of the flywheel to keep it from turning.  The second one slipped over the starter clutch and fit the odd-shaped nut perfectly.  Off came the nut, right handed threads.

     Two big screwdrivers substituted for one of the wrenches.  One screwdriver wedged against the fuel tank.  The other I held with my left hand.  I big old pipe wrench opened wide enough to fit the nut.  With the leverage  of the big pipe wrench, the flywheel nut succumbed easily. 

     I didn’t have a gear puller.  Back to U-Tube.  This time, the guy put a special sleeve over the end of the  crankshaft.  With two chisels between the engine body and the flywheel, he tapped the special sleeve with a hammer.  Off came the flywheel.  “Be careful not to lose the special washer and the key holding the flywheel in place on the crankshaft,” he cautioned.  He put them on the magnetic section of the flywheel so as not to lose them.

       The two big screwdrivers in place, I gave them a gentle pull and the flywheel popped off.  No need to tap the end of the shaft with a hammer.  One more cover to go and I would arrive at the breaker points.

      There they were, in pretty good shape, but not opening very wide.  A piece of emery cloth run between the rocker arm and the base of the points, a little alcohol to clean any oil or debris left over from the shining process, and there was but one thing to do:  gap the points correctly.

     What is correct?  Back to the internet.  Answer: .020”.  On this model, you loosen the screw and clamp holding the condenser.  Slide the condenser one way to widen the gap, the other to close the gap.

     The hard part of that was kneeling down on the garbage bag over the slushy snow while I loosened the screw just enough to let the condenser move.  A gentle tap with a hammer. Woops!  Too much.  The gap is more like .025”.  A few taps first this way then that way, and finally, I was at .020” as checked with the feeler gauge.  Tighten screw, replace flywheel with key in the notches on the flywheel and the crankshaft (can’t get it on wrong if you get the key in there) replace the flywheel nut, tighten securely.

     With the flywheel in place, time to check for spark.  Pull the plug, ground it against the engine head, and turn the engine over by flipping the flywheel fins.  It took a few turns to get enough speed to make a spark, but it worked.  In the sunlight, I saw, and heard, the spark jump.  Things were looking up.

      The two cowlings went back on fairly easy.  On the second pull, the old girl took off.  But there was this terrible screeching noise.  All was not well.  It turned out that the flywheel or the starter recoil clutch was getting rubbed by the flywheel somewhere.

     It took a few tries to get the cowling adjusted, but it happened.  The thing runs again.  I left it in the back yard. 

     It snowed, unexpectedly.  The weather people only said a chance for rain, maybe turning to snow, no accumulation.  I got up Thursday morning, pulled the blind, to see three inches of snow and mounting. 

      I had to be at IHOP by 7:30.  No time to fool with the snow blower.  By the time I returned, the snow was melting, not exactly the best thing for a snow blower.  One more time, I shoveled the walks and the driveway.

      I will get the snow blower around to the front yard, today, maybe.  (Not counting my chickens this time.)  When I do, that will be the end of the snowstorms for this year, Punxsutawney Phil notwithstanding.  Guaranteed.  It’s Murphy’s Law.