We had 7.5" of the wettest snow I have ever seen Sunday night/Monday morning. It was so heavy the snowblower gave up and we shoveled. I am hurting today.
I just saw this and remembered back to the olden days (just last winter
) when I had to clear the driveway. I modified the impeller blades in my olde snowblower using a kit from a Canadian company called Clarence's Small Engines. I think they're out of business--no online presence--but similar items can be found online or made. Search for snowblower impeller modifications.
The issue was the shoot clogging with wet snow, and the cause was the wide gaps between the impeller blades and the housing. The solution was to take strips of rubber belting (any farm implement store will have this) and add them to the impeller blades and close the gap. The kit was short pieces of belting, a steel bar with bolt holes, nuts & bolts, and instructions to mark & drill holes in the impeller blades, and sandwich the drilled belt pieces between the blades and the steel bar. I think it could be made by the more handy people on this forum. Just expect a bit of smoke at first because the belting will have some friction with the impeller housing until they are properly mated. Kinda like an engine's break in period.
It worked great on the heavy wet stuff, my underpowered Craftsman (not underpowered on the little city driveway I had when I bought it but not adequate when we moved to the country) was frequently clogging--this almost completely ended that. Inlaws in Minot, ND, where they know extreme snow, had this first and also were amazed by the difference this thing made in their snowblower's performance. Trying theirs's out convinced me to do the same.
When I replaced the Craftsman (still going strong at approximately 25 years old--I know the new owner), I noticed that newer snowblowers had much bigger impeller housings, and tighter tolerances. Maybe this project wouldn't be needed on newer units.
