Hello everyone,

I recently did all of the "basic" maintenance on my snowblower (complex for me!), and am having some problems.

background: during the last snow, the auger kept slowing down and eventually stopped spinning. I figured belt problem. My snowblower was pretty neglected so I decided to replace common items.

I replaced - auger belt, drive belt, carburetor, spark plug, oil change, and fresh fuel.

After a lot of installing and re-installing, I've isolated my issues to two things.

1. The snowblower cranks but will not start with the carburetor cover shroud thing on. The metal shroud that covers the carburetor and has holes in it to put the choke switch etc through? not sure what its called but once i Have it screwed on in place, snowblower will not start.

if I take it off, I can get her running. Is this some sort of grounding issue?? How do I solve for this? as far as I can tell, the wiring is as it was before I started, nothing seems out of place.

2. while fiddling with the shroud on/off and motor running I could see some sparks coming from the metal shroud thing when I put it in its proper spot (part of #1). buuut... on my last fiddling attempt, I heard a really loud boom (like a large balloon pop). I got scared, shut it down, and that was it!! What did I do? Did I do serious damage to the engine?

3. while its running, I feel like it has more power than it did before I started this endeavor - not sure if this is a result of all the new gear, or because something is incorrectly adjusted... Is this something that requires "troubleshooting"? since I've had problems 1 and 2 above I haven't really run it for more than 30 seconds to a minute so this extra "power" may or may not be an issue....

Any help would be appreciated!

If it helps - Snowblower is a Craftsman 247.885550 with a Tecumseh LH195SP engine

 

Hi, it’s certainly not a good thing to see sparks anywhere, will it run with the shroud removed? Can you post some pics of this choke switch?
Geo

 

thanks Geo. I'm actually in Chicago for the game today (go Bears!) so snap some pics tomorrow during daylight hours and get back to you!

Is it safe to try and turn it on again? after some heavy googling, I think the loud boom I heard may have been engine backfire.... since I replaced everything maybe i introduced contaminants or it still had some old fuel lingering, water, etc? I can try to post a video of the issue if that is helpful too!

 

posted 2 pictures but doesn't look like it worked through the link in the text boxes. any other way to post images?

 

Hi, I usually go to manage attachments at the bottom of the page and select pics from my photos.
Geo

 

Here are instructions for posting pictures.

 

No instructions on that post Pilot,.
Geo

 

Geo click on the "Here" in his message

 

Does the snowblower have a battery and/or alternator?