Adventures in snow-blower repair

The chute on my Cra-p-sman Snow-blower has seen better days. One to many chunks of ice has gone through it shattering the brittle plastic in the bitter cold. The lower bolt holes busted out this winter and the chute would no longer stay on the geared mounting collar. I mended it with bailing wire just to make it through the winter.

Multiple repairs over the years. Including epoxy on the inside to keep things more or less contoured so the snow would not hang up on the rivet heads from the patches.

As Sears closed its repair and spare part annex last year spares are not available for Craftsman products locally. So I resolved to make a new one..... hmmmmm that 7 inch sewer pipe I left by the road crew on my lawn when they put in the new sewer lines a few years back might just do the trick. A few slices with the circular saw and a bit of heat seemed to do the trick.

On my first attempt the angled bit was not long enough so we did a second try. 10 inches long is just about right. I may actually elongate the holes in order to make it adjustable.

A bit of work with the heat gun does wonders to reshape PVC plastic

And as the insides of the new chute are much smoother than the old one the thing now shoots snow quite nicely.

The old chute would spit snow from the gap of the deflector hinge back on the hot exhaust of the engine at causing steam thus making the engine quit. In order to keep it running I had an aluminum shield over the engine. My new improved version has no gap thus no snow on the hot exhaust and no need for the shield.

The first sunny day in more than 3 weeks brought us nearly 40 deg F and in the sun in front of the garage and no wind it must have been nearly 70 deg F. An other successful repair.