# 2010 CubCadet hard to push



## PJR (Feb 25, 2016)

2010 CubCadet hard to push

Picture indicates amount of wear on snow intake, close to paddles.

A close look shows plastic strip below.

Why is it such a bear to push in snow of any kind? I replace the plastic strip every year. (The first year, I didn't realize that I needed to do this.)

Am I really stuck into replacing the whole "shell"? That is what repair facilities tell me.

Are there plastic strips you can install to keep it "up", or wheels?

Just Wondering.


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## nwcove (Mar 2, 2015)

does it need paddles ? it should kinda pull itself along.


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## detdrbuzzard (Jan 20, 2012)

hello pjr, welcome to *SBF!! *tilt the machine up slightly so the paddles contact the ground, it should pull itself along and check the paddles for wear


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## bad69cat (Nov 30, 2015)

Exactly - if the paddles are not to worn you should be able to maneuver it with one hand easily. They do 90% of the work you just let it crawl along and guide it for the most part......


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## nwcove (Mar 2, 2015)

yep, my toro with worn out paddles will still help with forward motion, no pushing required unless the snow conditions are more than it was built for.


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## DennisP (Jan 10, 2016)

Honestly, I have had the same kind of issue with an older MTD single stage snowblower myself.

I have a 2015 Cub Cadet 221 LHP single stage. It is basically brand new and worked perfect this winter. Smooth moving, pulls itself along. But, again, it is basically new with new paddles and scrapper bar.

I also have a 1999 vintage MTD 2-cycle 4.75hp single stage as well. I used it last year and it worked perfect, pretty much like the 221LHP in that it moved smoothly and pulled itself along. The scrapper bar and paddles are about 2 years old, not ancient, but not brand new either. I used it once on the first snowfall at a neighbors house and it worked like it should and just moved along smoothly.

About a month and a half later I had to deal with snow at the neighbors and stored the MTD single stage there all that time. I got there, started it up and when I went to use it I pretty much ran into the same situation in that it seemed to almost "dig in" and be hard to push and it really never pulled itself along anymore, as I had to push it just as much as it would pull itself.

Now, upon tearing down the entire snowblower I noticed the scrapper bar was worn like yours, ie, a jagged mess of a bottom edge, not a smooth bottom edge, and it didn't have a clean "cutting edge" at the front either. What I attributed it to was either a bad scrapper bar, or just bad ice on the pavement where I was using it. ie, it seemed as if the pavement I was clearing had sharp ice crystals that formed on the pavement facing up that made it feel like the snowblower was going over sandpaper instead of smooth icy pavement. Since this was a neighbors property, and my son normally was using a metal-edged shovel doing it before me (he was out of commission having had a couple of wisdom teeth removed), I just figured the pavement had some funky ice form on it.

While doing the driveway that day it really felt like I was "cutting into" the surface more than gliding over it (which is what it always felt like before and what my 221LHP always feels like).

Now, when I tore it down the bar wasn't totally worn away, and the only thing I noticed was it wasn't sitting parallel to the auger because one edge had bent down a little, thus the scrapper was sitting on an angle against the pavement and wearing unevenly.

I would suggest pulling the scrapper bar and making sure that whole edge it bolts to is perfect straight from right to left. Use a metal straight-edge to verify it is perfect before flipping the scrapper bar around or putting on a new one if you already used both sides of the existing scrapper bar. Per your pictures it looks as if the left side is wearing more than the right side which would indicate it isn't sitting parallel to the ground anymore either.

In my case one side (the left as well, but it doesn't matter) was bent by the carriage bolt on that side which caused it to sit lower on that side than the right side does. I haven't finished my rebuild yet to verify that is it, but there isn't much else on these that is "critical" to how they operate.


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## db9938 (Nov 17, 2013)

Welcome, and in part, this is the nature of the beast and the condition of the terrain that you use it on. Single stages are meant to come in contact with the pavement, as such, they generally clean much better than two stages, but at the cost of a higher wear rate. 

You could do as suggested and put a little down pressure on the handle, or you could create some side mounted skid shoes. This will decrease the cleaning ability, but increase the life. You would have to drill into the side of the bucket, and source something that would suffice as a shoe. 

If you are unfamiliar with the side mounted shoes just check out some of the manufactures sites, to get an idea. 

You may able to get away with using simple 1/4" mild steel bar stock, for shoes. Just the depth to about that of a paint stick.


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