# old Ariens snowblower



## plowman (Jan 16, 2011)

Hey guys,
New to this forum. Used to peruse through the tractor forum. Have a 26hp tractor with a rear mounted snowplow which works great for light amounts of snow.

I recently inherited an old (~1968) Ariens 10M4 dual stage monster of a snowblower. I believe it has a 4hp Tecumseh engine which actually still starts up pretty strong but could be strong when plowing through snow. Recently it was able to slow blow through the 20" of snow in New England (Jan 2010 double Nor'easter). The tires also don't get much traction... pretty much bald.

Has anyone worked with this style snowblower? I need to figure out how to pull off the wheels. I think I have to put a heat gun to the wheels and just pull them off... no cotter pins. Is that right ?

Also... I have this 10 hp Tecumseh engine in the shed that is on my rear tine tiller. I rarely use the tiller so I was thinking I could steal the engine from the tiller and put it on this Ariens blower. But 10hp is a lot of engine for a snowblower... Any thoughts of the viability of this ? If I really had to use the tiller I could always move the engine back. That's not a big deal to me.

The old Ariens is a little ragger but I'll tell you, she threw like a champ once I put on a new belt and tightened the idler puller. Neighbors with new blowers were calling plow trucks with the 20" of snow and I was just chugging away slowly but surely. I'm hoping putting on the 10hp engine and new tires will help me "plow" through the heavy stuff faster.

Sorry about the length. Look forward to any thoughts. 

Thanks for reading,
Plowman


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## Shryp (Jan 1, 2011)

Does yours have 3 bolts in the rims? Most of the wheels are bolted to hubs. Yours appears to be very old though. I just replaced an HM80 with an 11HP engine on mine. You probably could get away with the 10HP.

Have a look at Scot's page:
The Ariens 1960's and 1970's Sno-Thro info site.


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## plowman (Jan 16, 2011)

There are two bolts but I'm not sure I'd say they are bolted to the rim. If memory serves correct the three bolts/nuts are tractor side... I'll try to get a picture and show it.... thanks


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## plowman (Jan 16, 2011)

I meant three bolts...


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## Shryp (Jan 1, 2011)

Here are the 3 bolts that hold my rims on.










Here are some pictures of the hub behind the rim:

Old Ariens 6 hp Snow Thrower Spur Gear Replacement


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## plowman (Jan 16, 2011)

I'll have to take a look tonight... I swear it doesn't look like that... I know there's a hubcap and supposedly 3 cotter pins behind it... so maybe the hubcap is covering 3 bolts & 3 cotter pins... The tires on this machine are solid, not pneumatic. Though I may put some pneumatic tires on there, if I can get the old ones off !


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## Shryp (Jan 1, 2011)

I was looking on Scot's site and it looked like the really old ones used some different mounts.


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## plowman (Jan 16, 2011)

Yeah, this one's really old. 1966-1968. So it was too cold in the shed to take pictures but this is what happened. Took off the hubcap. Found a 3/4" washer and a cotter pin around/through a 3/4" shaft... I removed the cotter pin (not so easy) and the washer (easy) and now I'm left with a wheel/hub. I can feel 6 nuts on the inside of the wheel hub. I see the 6 flat bolt heads on the outside. I guess I need to remove those 6 nuts... These nuts and bolts seem to be attaching the hub to the wheel. I wonder how you get the hub off the shaft... pulling on the hub and wheel didn't make the wheel come off like I would hope. Gonna do some research and read some unclear Ariens assembly PN diagrams to see if I can make any more sense out of it. Any more ideas ?


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## plowman (Jan 16, 2011)

Shryp,
Thanks for the help. I think my wheel/hub looks more like this one you posted Old Ariens 6 hp Snow Thrower Spur Gear Replacement than yours. But I seem to have 6 little bolts instead of 3 big ones... pita. So remove the 6 nuts/bolts and then... find a new wheel with same bolt pattern or drill holes to match.....


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## Shryp (Jan 1, 2011)

That link is exactly what mine looks like behind the rims.


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## plowman (Jan 16, 2011)

*figured out how it goes together!*

or comes apart.... you're not going to believe this! so I pulled out the cotter pin at the end of the axle and the hub cap (which cleans up real nice, btw). I thought to myself, eh, she'll still run. Looks like there's 6 bolts attaching the wheel to the hub, I'll do the engine soon and do the wheels in the spring...

Well! We just got another 20" of snow in Connecticut. My 26 horse tractor + plow won't do crap in this kind of a storm and FEDEX says the new engine is supposed to arrive tomorrow! So... I try to fire her up and she does! We have a long, wide driveway but 1/4 of the way through it, down at the end where the darn town plowman left me a 4' drift I'm fighting it, I'm taking care of it and THE WHEEL FALLS OFF! It popped right back on but I was like, son of a gun! I spent the rest of the morning kicking the wheel back into place whenver it came loose but she did the job!

So those 6 "bolts" in the wheel attaching it to a hub are RIVETS. There's a Woodruff key (half-moon shaped key) between the axle and hub/wheel to keep the system locked together while spinning and that cotter pin was holding the whole thing together! Who'd have guessed!

Now I gotta figure out how to attach a wheel without a hub to this thing...


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## Shryp (Jan 1, 2011)

Can't you just put the pin back in? Or at least find a screw/bolt/nail to hold you over?


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## plowman (Jan 16, 2011)

I tried but didn't have anything that fit... the cotter pin was so old it snapped in half upon removal. But at lunch I found a local hardware store with the right size Woodruff key for $0.60 and a new cotter pin for $0.15. haha 

Then I went and bought a 4 foot section of L-bracket for a few bucks, a set of 4 galvanized steel carriage bolts w/lock washer and bolt for like $2.50. I asked them to cut it in half, which they helpfully did (I was too tired to get out the circular saw) and made myself some homemade drift cutters. Wheel in place + drift cutter took care of the most of the driveway. Still have a little more snow clearing to do, in my opinion though.

New 7.5 Briggs may arrive tomorrow. New 16" snow hogs arrive Saturday. I hope Sunday to be roaring again, with some traction this time. We'll make her pretty this summer but for now, just need to get her running well and in good shape again. Man, it's a long winter this year.


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## Shryp (Jan 1, 2011)

Isn't 16" a bit big for that blower? Mine are only 13" and they are slightly upsized from stock from a 77.


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## plowman (Jan 16, 2011)

I guess we'll see. It's only a 2" on a diameter, actually 1.75" to be exact. The tires on there are tiny today. My tire diameter is 12" today and I certainly have the clearance (checked).

According to my calculations, overall speed may increase by 33% due to tire size however engine torque is increasing by 50% so hoepfully she'll be able to handle it. I'm hoping she'll purr and drill through the snow. Increased traction shouldn't hurt any. Really looking forward to it. I need all the traction I can get. I have to blow this "Highway to No Where", a 6 foot wide path that's 150 feet long on the grass, around the house in order to make a road for the tractor-plow to get over to the driveway.


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