105 struggles after 2hrs of snowthrowing
 

Hey guys, hopefully you can give me some insight as to what may be going on. I'm pretty new to tractors/snow blowers/throwers/etc and this was my first full attempt at doing my driveway.

Preface, my 105 ran great all summer mowing my yard for hours at a time and I keep it garaged in the winter.

I was very gloriously throwing snow all over the place last night for about 1.5-2 hours with my cc105 and cc36 snowthrower. Feel free to critique my process as I have no idea if im "doing it right"

I'd throw a line of of the white stuff, disengage my auger, lift thrower, bring my throttle down a bit, never less than half, reverse, drop thrower, WOT, engage auger, do another line.

After maybe an hour an a half i noticed my auger was not disengaging. Foolishly I kept cleaning snow, and it backfired maybe twice in the next 20 minutes and started bogging. I turned it off and finished with a shovel.

I was able to adjust the pto clutch to get it to disengage but I'm wondering what happened?

It is VERY possible the belt is too tight as I struggle with the idea of "tighten it until slack is out of the belt, then tighten it 3-3.5 more turns." The belt is rubber, it always feels like there is slack! Ever since I installed the thrower, somethings chirps a bit on startup of the engine. maybe the clutch was already slipping a bit into engagement. it just seems weird I would have to adjust it all of a sudden.


Would an overly tight belt be overworking the engine?

The front end of the 105 was covered in snow and ice and things started working very slowly like when starting the tractor back up, the brake safety switch would take about 5 seconds to realize it was engaged to start. Maybe some vital part was iced up causing overheating or moisture was getting into my engine? Air filter was on pretty tight though. Maybe a frozen throttle cable or something?

Sorry for the novel, thanks!

Chris

I am by no means an expert with the Cub snow blowers but I would guess you may have sucked some snow into the air filter. I think I would keep it wide open the whole time you are using it rather than backing off. I also would not disengage the clutch just to back up. They way I look at it every time you engage it you are wearing it out. Sounds like you had it pretty well iced up. I'm sure others with more knowledge than me will chime in. :beerchug:

I agree on what Sam said, keep the pto on .Chirping sound may be a blown headgasket.

thanks for the replies guys. I'm going to double check the filter housing, adjust the pto clutch to manual spec, make sure my drive sheave is aligned properly, recheck belt tension and give it another go. Still a whole other half of a driveway/garage bay to clear out!

Leave the blower running all the time. When moving the components warm up, melt ice and snow. When it's cold the water will freeze, them make them hard to start up again. Just leave it on. NEVER engage the PTO at WOT. Ever. It's hard on everything. Engage it at the lowest possible throttle setting that doesn't stall the engine.

As far as backfiring, I'm with Sam. Possibly water into the intake, water in fuel, or a motor that just needs tuned up. I have never found any attachment that works a motor harder than a snowblower. If the motor needs attention, it will show up when blowing snow.

You probably just wore the clutch a little starting and stopping it so much.

Not likely.

It is possible that things were freezing. Like mentioned, tune up the motor, maybe drain and refill the fuel tank and bowl on the carb. Don't give up! :beerchug:

I agree; with any PTO implement its best to engage at low throttle then increase. Just may as well leave it on as you are using it; it'd be like shutting a mower deck off just to back up when mowing.

I agree with the others, leave it on all the time. If you're worried about working it at WOT when backing up and now throwing snow, you could back the throttle off a bit but leave the PTO engaged or remember that these motors were designed to be run at 3600rpm so don't be afraid of hurting it. If there was no load on the motor then it's usually not a good idea to run WOT but with the thrower on, you're ok in that regard. :beerchug:

Great tips guys, thanks again. My thought process was more about fuel efficiency, if I lessen the load on the engine and reduce throttle when not blowing/backing up maybe I can save some gas but it's probably not worth it the effort and sounds like it may be damaging. I was definitely WOT when engaging the PTO. I'll be sure to stop that.

You burn more fuel revving it up and down. Fuel mileage 101. Stop and go driving= bad mileage. Highway driving=constant speed=good gas mileage.

Is that a fair comparison? good mileage from highway driving comes from overdrive gearing that brings the RPM of the engine down for a long time. Less effort to move a moving car, less throttle, less air, less fuel used over time.

In stop and go, the engine is probably seeing higher revving through gears working harder to get you to get you moving, which is where the worse fuel economy comes from.

So when I think of comparing a car to WOT on my tractor, I imagine max RPM, max air, max fuel being burnt hence my thoughts about bringing throttle down when not loading.

But admittedly I really don't know anything about tractor engine design. Maybe its more efficient at WOT? I picture the engine sitting there pegged from being WOT, waiting to have that energy used for working my Hydro pump or for PTO and its being wasted if not doing either. Again, I don't know if that is right. That's just how I imagine it.

I gotta agree with what the other guys have said.

I've never done any real research on the subject but I'm willing to bet that you well never do a harder work with your Cub than throwing snow.

That said; the only thing that I have to add is, if you were throwing snow "into" the next row/s then you are moving a heavier load with each pass. Even though that is pretty-much how it's done, that's a lot of weight for any machine, let alone a 10 hp hydrostat tractor. Not saying that your Cub isn't up to the task... It just can't do the same work that a 14 or 16 HP Cub can.

The backfiring issue could be any number of things from overheating, to a wet coil/plug/plug wire.

Without being there, I would venture to guess that most of the problems that you encountered were related to the outside temperature, the addition of water and ice and working a 10 hp engine very hard.

Since you can't do anything about the outside temperature, try keeping the engine compartment of your tractor clear of snow, ice and water. Also be sure that the engine in your tractor is tuned to run at it's optimum. It is my belief that running any kind of equipment when it's very cold, is harder on the equipment that running it when it's hot outside and minor issues tend to be exaggerated in colder temperatures.

You didn't mention how much snow was on the ground.

It's a difficult explanation, and I'm not going to put it very eloquently but here goes. Yes, at WOT, the engine is going as fast as it has been designed to go but the real fuel usage comes from load. The engine will use more fuel at WOT under full load than it will at WOT with no load because it takes less fuel and air to make that piston go up and down when there is no load on the motor. Plus like I believe J-Mech said, revving up and down uses more fuel as the motor has to work harder to get back up to 3600rpm thereby negating any fuel savings offered by lowering rpm's while backing up and/or disengaging the PTO. Hope this helps!

Oh, and these single cylinder engines, imho, literally sip gas like a fine wine. By comparison, the 2 cylinder KT-17 in my 682 chugs the stuff like a ravenous beast that's been starved in the desert for a week. Moral of the story; don't worry about the gas usage. :beerchug:

I am by no means going to debate this. Been mechanicing for a long time.... small engines to dozers. I run my own shop. I promise, even if it saves fuel, and I'm sure it is at the minimum a wash, it's way harder on the motor than running WOT all the time. The motor is far from "pegged" when under no load.

it was about 5 inches of fairly fluffy stuff but there was a side of the driveway I was stabbing at closer to 10" built from a previous snowfall last week. I eventually bailed on that side as there was more snow to clear.

ugh, just realized the most previous snow fall two days ago, not last weeks! this is getting old quick!


this was from last weeks snowfall:
http://i802.photobucket.com/albums/y...psmrnm84jp.jpg

Sorry, I wasn't trying to disagree, just trying to explain my point of view, however wrong it may have been, so maybe someone could correct it. I appreciate the insight!

I didn't mean to sound gruff.... wasn't trying to be. :beerchug:

Wish my drive was that flat when I lived in CT. This was the winter that did it for me and what I used to plow. Date was 1/12/11 :beerchug:

Nice equipment though!

man last year we had a realllly bad early storm but I wasn't a home owner then!

I'd love to do a proper tune up, fix my hydro leak and just go through it but I have a tendency to be a meticulous(slow) worker and don't want to get caught with my snow pants down.

Last year I bought my first motorcycle, a non running 1982 honda cb650sc that had been sitting for 10 years. Cleaned the fuel tank, replaced a pulse generator ignition pickup, full tuneup, rebuilt the carbs, balanced them, dialed in the fuel mixture. I figured if I was going to own a motorcycle, I better know how to fix everything on it. My friends make fun of me for taking over a year get it running properly but it runs alot better than their newer bikes!

Sounds like you are going to fit in just fine with this group. :biggrin2:

I don't think The chirping is a blown headgasket. I just replaced the one of my 1450 and it still chirps on start up. I think it has something to do with the Thrower.

I'm oddly interested in this, too, as my 129 (with a 14hp transplant) occasionally chirps on start-up too. Hmm...:bigthink:

Must be little birdie then.

Backfiring thru muffler might mean your running rich and/or need a valve job especially on the exhaust valve.
Running it hard for a period of time gets the muffler really good and hot.
Along with too much unburnt fuel and kaboom.

Mine does it almost everytime I shutdown after mowing the yard.
Not even at full throttle, maybe 3/4ths to 7/8ths.

I hope yours is not backfiring out the carb.

Nope, not out of the carb. it's out of the muffler and has only been doing it since taking on snow duty last week. Didn't do it at all this summer. I think it backfired a few times engaging the PTO at WOT, and also at shutdown. Ive read a few threads on techniques to avoid shutdown backfire, seems bringing the throttle down to halfway for a minute or two before shutdown might help.

That's what I try to remember to do (throttle down slowly).
And it works most of the time if I remember.
If I don't, the wife reminds me for making her jump.

It's because the engine is hot and there's gas vapor in the muffler that explodes. Idle it down and let it run for a minute. It's not real good for the muffler.

Not sure if this "tinkled down" to CC engines, but on the full-size Farmalls, the torque/horsepower curves were optimized for the upper end of the RPM range.

As I sort of very vaguely kind of recall, the large tractors would be run up to full throttle (high idle) and then the dynamometer would load the engine till the tachometer would be on the rated PTO speed mark, and observe Horsepower reading on the dynamometer.

You never, ever start an engine and make it run WOT immediately, nor do you shut it off without letting it run at the lowest setting for a while. True on any engine you own. Let me put it to you this way.... How would you like it is I came into your bedroom, jerked you out of bed asleep, kicked you in the seat and made you start running as fast as you could. Then after running for hours, I just knock you down to the ground and tell you to go to sleep. You ever try to just stop running? Feels like you heart is going to explode. Well, no more than a human body likes these demands, the internals of an engine don't either. I can give the mechanics as to why, but there is really no need. Just know, it isn't good on it. Let your cub warm up.... and respectively, let it cool down. Your motor will last longer, won't backfire, and serve you way longer. :beerchug:

All engines produce power on a torque/hp curve. Tractors, cub cadet, most all diesel engines, along with stationary gas engines use a variable speed governor, and this type of "power setting" is true to them all. So, the answer is yes, it applies to the Cub Cadets too.

Jonathan:

Great explanation of torque/HP curves.

I know what I want to say.... I don't always make things clear when I try to explain. My intent was to say that I wasn't sure if the CC engines were optimized at the upper end of the RPM range.

I have to agree,leave the motor opened up and leave the PTO engaged. IF you need to throttle back when you back up but leave the PTO engaged. You will just wear the lead button on the PTO which is why it kept running. I have always found also starting in the middle and work your way to the outside has always worked for me. Keep the snow from blowing in your face because its cold...lol

Just takes seat time to get used to it. Good luck an hope you enjoy the years to come as I have enjoyed my time on the seat of my IH CC 104 with the CW-36. Was my grandpas an he gave it to me 20 years ago but I had to work it off by mowing his yard and cleaning his driveway in the winter. I gotta say it was well worth it because now I have a wonderful memory :)

Just about every generator I used or water pump they were set at 3600 rpm as soon as you start it.