Saturday, January 25, 2014

Old Iron: Roland

I brought home a snow blower today and added it to the growing collection of things-I-used-to-own-but-didn't-after-the-divorce. If you've been through a divorce, you'll either understand or will look at the pile of things you own and don't know what to do with and say "Is that what all that is?"  Where was I? Oh yeah - the snow blower.

It's a good sized machine, and older Bolens 824 with a real Tecumseh Snow King on it (with electric start, thank you) and made of steel thick enough to cook on. It was built in the late 80's or early 90's, but is still made to be serviced rather than replaced - a concept lost on the current generation of outdoor power equipment offered at the big box stores.

The blower was offered to me for nothing other than the promise of getting it out of the garage, and I was more than happy to oblige. I had no real hope that it would run,  so I expected to have to do the usual old machine dance - belts, carb, tank flush, fuel line, etc. Two flat tires added to the list, and I figured it was still worth the work seeing as it was a decent machine. So here's the thing: I don't own a truck. I own a Jetta wagon, and I was a little nervous that it wouldn't fit and then I'd be stuck having to add the cost of a truck rental to the expenses. I pulled the handle off, disconnected all the controls, and got some help lifting the heft into the car. It fit, and I was on my way home with one of the best freebies I've scored in a while.

Now, remember that I had help getting it into the car? Yeah. No chance of that at home. I had the hatch open and the blower back as far as I could get it in the car, attached the handles and then had no idea what to do at this point. I don't own ramps any more (see the opening lines, please), but I am, uh, brave. I had a 2' tall block and a couple pieces of furring. Close enough if I could get the tire back on the rim and it actually rolled. I figured I could support the furring with the block and that would be close enough. I was lucky (and I have some experience getting tires back on rims) and the tires took the air. It rolled out of the car and onto the furring, and as the too-skinny strips took the weight, they failed. The blower came down to the driveway in a swift, graceful arc and landed on the blacktop with a muffled crash.

Roland was home.

I put it back together and rolled it close to the garage, within extension cord distance. If you don't know, the Tecumseh Snow King is a line of motors that were shrouded in such a way that the heat of the engine kept the carb warm during operation. They often had 120v starters that you just plugged into a household outlet and pushed the start button. SO.. .I did. And guess what?

Roland started within about 10 seconds of cranking.

He needs some adjusting, and some tweaking to be totally stable, but I took a couple runs with it and could throw snow up to the roof of the garage. That's pretty cool. And a good sign for the future of the snowblower.

I like old power equipment. I like things that can be worked on and tinkered with, things that can have broken things replaced and greased and polished (if need be). I like trying to figure out how a mechanism worked, and then how to get it running again.

I like old iron. It's simple and reliable and driven by belts.







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