If you live in the Northeastern United States you’re probably still digging out from the massive winter storm that blew through the area over the past three days. Here in my local area of Pennsylvania we managed to get just over 12 inches of snow, although towns not far away managed well over 23 inches and my family in northern New Jersey are estimating that they had around 18 inches of white stuff.

Thankfully I have a 27″ Briggs & Stratton 1227MD Snow Blower to help clean my 2,000 square foot driveway. I bought this unit back in 2017 and while it hasn’t had too much work in the past few years it’s always been reliable and easy to operate. On Monday afternoon my trusty steed stopped working and a bit of panic set in as the second wave of snow starting falling. The engine was fine, but the snow blower would frequently stop moving forward and the wheels would lock up. The snow blower would move in reverse but it would not move forward. Using a 10mm socket and socket wrench I was able to remove the lower panel that covers the drive train and a screw literally fell out. Looking at the bottom panel it was quite clear that the screw was rolling around at the bottom of the panel and was occasionally getting wedged between the drive gear and the external sheet metal causing everything to “lock up”.

I looked around to see if I could determine where the “extra” screw had come from but I wasn’t able to find anything missing or out of place. I put the machine back together and this morning it ran like a champ for 2+ hours clearing my driveway and my neighbors.

My Thoughts?

Thankfully I was able to quickly troubleshoot the problem and determine the issue. While I enjoy the occasional manual labor, I wasn’t looking forward to the thought of having the shovel 12 inches of snow from my long driveway, so I was sufficiently motivated to “figure it out“. Are you handy? If so great! If not, don’t be afraid to branch out and try new things, whether you are a “handy” person or not. It’s not rocket science!

Cheers!

PS: Thanks for the cake Anita, it was delicious!