Mack Truck Yellow Breakdown

Last week, we got another fifteen inches of snow over the course of two days. I thought the snow was winding down. I was deceived by the warm weather days ahead of the storm by temperatures in the fifties. The snow had receded enough to see the ground  in some places but it did not last. The snow reminds me that spring will be coming someday.

Monday morning found me clearing the driveway with our snowblower.  The drifts in our driveway were well over the top of the mouth of the mouth of the blower which stands at about sixteen inches tall. Afterwards I needed to make a path in our backyard to a secondary wood pile. Upon the return path I was making towards the house, the snowblower quit throwing snow. As I looked down the chain that drives the inner auger paddle was still attached meaning that the belt that drives the auger directly from the engine had broken. I got the blower into the garage and removed the access panel to find the belt shredded.

Lower gear box of the snowblower. Mack Truck Yellow.

 

I bought this snowblower used when we moved here. I found out this week that that the blower was made in the early 80s and belt that drives the auger is a specific size and obviously was going to be hard to locate. I did find the replacement belt online and was ready to order it when I heard of the forecast of more snow coming next week. If I ordered it online it would have taken several days to receive the belt. I called every small engine repair service to locate the belt locally. Luckily, I found one at a farm implement dealer just down the road. What Luck.   Today, I replaced the belt and will continue to use the snowblower until it decides that I need to tinker with it some more. I must say that the blower is a very handy machine that beats shoveling a lot of snow and makes quick work of our driveway.

Boo, our cat,