This is my first year with the new Snowtek snow blower. The directions say to perform its first oil change after 2 hours of operation. The first snow storm of the 2017-2018 season only porduced 1 hour of use. The next snowblowing took place just beofre leaving for Kansas over the HChristams holiday. When I got back, I had to snow blow again. So I didn't get to the maintenance until it had about 4 hours on it - but I did get it done.
First was getting the correct oil. The engine manual specified 4-cycle automobile oil at 5w-30. I went to the local O'Reilly's and looked for 4-cycle oil. I could find 2-cycle oil but not 4-cycle. Now, I sort of believed that it would be regular car oil, but was unsure. So I played the dumb girl and asked one of the parts technicians. He was very helpful and asked all the questions as to dino or synthetic, viscosity and how much. So he made sure I got the right stuff and even pointed me to what was on sale to save a couple of $$. I also got an oil pan and a combination of cheap funnels (you'll see why I needed 2).
I got home, pulled the car out of the garage (and let it run to charge the battery), and got everything set up. Now, most models of the Snowtek have the drain plug located at the rear of the engine. My luck placed the oil plug above the right tire, so I couldn't put the oil pan just below. I tilted the snow blower by placing the left tire and blade on 2x4's and after much grunting I got the oil plug removed.
The set up of the 2 funnels looks strange, but it got the oil to the pan without a mess. My only area of trepidation was that the oil wasn't draining out of the tube when I removed the plug. It took just a few seconds for me to realize that I needed to remove the dip stick, and the oil ran out freely at that point. It drained so quickly that I poured some new oil into the engine and watched for it to come out.
Once I was sure the oil had drained, I put the plug back together and added oil.
The engine manual said it needed 16 oz but by the time I had gotten the oil to register at just below the full mark on the dipstick, it was closer to 20 oz. I had been discussing changing the oil on the pellet/firewood hoarders forum, and others who had the same brand of machine, had warned me it would take more oil than the manual suggested. They had alos offered other suggestions - such a helpful crew on that forum!
Once I had the dipstick secured, I checked for leaks and reefed once more on the plug to ensure tightness. Now for the big experiment - I started up the machine and let it run for a minute. There was no spurting oil, not even any leaks!
A smooth project for a change :)
OK, Bogie, you have me puzzled: "reefed once more"? Is that a typo or will you teach me a new use for "reefed"?
Posted by: Cop Car | January 09, 2018 at 10:46 AM
P.S. Doesn't if feel good when a project goes smoothly for you? Congratulations!
Posted by: Cop Car | January 09, 2018 at 10:47 AM
Gave it a good crank, honked on it
Posted by: bogie | January 09, 2018 at 06:02 PM
*chuckling* So you did the gorilla bit. In working on aircraft hydraulic systems (Navy), I found that some of the guys (mostly, the muscly kind) needed counseling to back off the torque after tightening connectors. The muscly ones hadn't stopped to consider that their over-torqueing was causing the leaks they encountered. As a relative weakling, I didn't share their problem.
P.S. I didn't say in my last comment; but, I like the nice, clean look of your new format. Is it more compatible with non-desktop manipulation?
Posted by: Cop Car | January 11, 2018 at 11:33 AM
Oh yeah, I don't have the over-torqueing issue with tightening things either. I was going to buy a torque wrench but others on the forum just suggested to hand tighten then give it another 1/2 turn with the wrench. Well, I know from experience that my hand tightening is very weak , as is even my wrench tightening, so decided to forgo the expense.
Posted by: bogie | January 14, 2018 at 07:06 AM
I have no idea if the new format is more compatible with other-than-computer use. I only have a couple of readers so didn't really worry about that. I would guess that it is just because the custom code that I had developed so long ago never took into consideration such things. I'm sure Typepad has my back on that :)
Posted by: bogie | January 14, 2018 at 07:08 AM