The good news is that repairing a snowblower’s auger drive belt is a fairly simple procedure.

A Quick Investigation

Before doing too much tear-down, you’ll first want to find out whether your drive belts need to be replaced at all. For a quick inspection, remove the pulley cover. This will tell you immediately if your belts have just slipped off the pulley’s or are actually broken.

Even if you find the belts have simply slipped off the pulleys, this would be a good time to inspect them closely for any wearing or cracks. If the belts are damaged at all, you’ll probably want to replace them now since you’ve already started breaking down the snow blower.

Also, if your cover is cracked, this would be a good time to replace that as well.

Two Halves of a Snowblower

The next thing you’ll do is remove the bolts that hold the two halves of your snowblower together. When doing this, make sure you have something supporting the handles. Without the auger attached to the handlebars, that half of the snow blower will want to tip over that direction. Place a wheel barrow or something under the handles. That way when it tips that direction, the handles will come to rest on the wheel barrow.

You’ll now have access to completely remove the belt from your snowblower.

Installing the New Snowblower Belt

Installation is basically the reverse of removal. The thing you’ll want to be certain of when installing the new belt is that the belt is tucked inside the tension pulley properly and aligned with the drive pulley correctly. Some snow blowers will have a guide bolt that keeps the belt on the pulley. This will need to be removed so you can insert the new belt.

Once the new snow blower belt is installed, you’ll be ready to put the two halves of the snowblower back together. This can be a bit tricky if you’re working by yourself, so I suggest you find a friend to help you put your snow blower back together. That way you’ll have twice as many hands, and half as much frustration.

Keep Spare Snow Blower Belts Handy

Your snow blower is ready to start throwing snow again. However, you never know when you’re going to hit some heavy snow and break another belt. So, you’ll probably want another set of belts on hand. Just hang them on a hook on your garage wall and you’ll be ready for your next snow blower belt repair.

Discount Online Parts Facebook Page

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your new year is productive, fun, and filled with great memories. I wanted to do a little something different for our end-of-year post. For this post, I want to invite you to our Facebook community. It’s a great place to chat with other people who do their own repairs. Plus, we offer exclusive deals to our Facebook community that no one else gets.

Power Equipment Repair Q & A

Our wall is open, go ahead and post a question and we’d be happy to answer it for you. The really nice thing about posting your question on our Facebook page is that there are lots and lots of people who do both hobby and professional repair on our fan page. That’s a ton of experience to draw from. If anyone can answer your question, the folks on the DOP Facebook page can.

Share Your Experiences

If you’ve overcome some obstacle in your repair attempts or have discovered a neat tip or trick to make repairs easier, post it on our page. We love making repair less of a headache and your tips might just be the thing to make someone’s life easier.

Get Exclusive Deals

We want our relationship with our customers to go beyond an exchange of parts for money. We want to get to know you more and find out how we can help you even better. That’s why our Facebook page is so important to us.

In exchange for liking our page and getting involved in the community, we regularly offer special pricing and discounts you can’t get anywhere else. Have a friend who’s doing some repair? Tell them about our Facebook page and they can get a great deal on the parts they need for their repair.

Leave a Great Review

If you’ve had a great experience with DOP, we would really appreciate it if you post a short review. We’re always striving to make our customers’ experience a great one and we’d love to know how we’ve done that for you so we can do more of it.

Come on over and “like” us now.

Decompression Valve Repair

If your concrete saw is bogging down, the problem may be a leaky decompression valve.

Decompression Valve Problems

Heavy cutting is going to make your saw work harder. That’s a given. However, if your saw is bogging down to the point that it just isn’t able to cut properly under the heavy workload, you might have a leaky decompression valve on your hands.

Much like your spark plug, the decompression valve is exposed on the inside of the combustion chamber. We’ve discussed these issues with regards to chainsaw tune up, and the same issues apply to the decompression valve. They can have carbon build-up or be caked with oil, just like a spark plug gets. And, all that build up can interfere with their ability to close, which causes leaks.

Decompression Valve Clean Up and Maintenance

Much like a spark plug, the decompression valve is simply removed with a deep-well socket or a wrench. Remove the housing and unscrew the valve.

Unlike a spark plug, which simply must be replaced when it accumulates build-up or gets corroded, your decompression valve can be cleaned. Soak it for 15 to 20 minutes in gasoline, or spray it down with some WD-40 and let it sit.

Then, use an old tooth brush to scrub the caked on stuff off the valve. Make sure there is no build-up interfering with the valve’s ability to close.

Reinstall the valve and see if it functions better under heavy cutting conditions.

Replacing a Decompression Valve

If the saw is still giving you problems, you may need to simply replace the decompression valve. Your valve might be too worn or corroded to seal properly any more and you may have no other alternative but to replace it.

The good news is, a decompression valve is an inexpensive part. So, replacing it won’t hurt your pocket book too much.

Keeping Ahead of the Game

I would highly suggest you at least give some thought to checking your decompression valve every time you check your spark plug. You should be checking your spark plug as a part of your regular maintenance on your saw. If your spark plug has a good deal of build-up, it’s likely that your decompression valve also has a good amount of build-up and needs some attention.

As with anything, regular maintenance is the best policy, but it’s nice to know that replacement of your decompression valve is a really simple procedure if it becomes necessary.

Molded Chainsaw Fuel Line

If you pull your chainsaw out and find that it’s leaking fuel, you might just have a cracked fuel line. Replacing a fuel line is a fairly simple fix. Let’s discuss how to get that new fuel line on your chainsaw and get it back in working order.

Removing the Fuel Line

One end of your chainsaw’s fuel line is connected to the carburetor and the other enters the fuel tank and is connected to the fuel filter. First, you need to remove the end from the carburetor. Then, remove the cap from the fuel tank and reach into the fuel tank with either a needle nosed pliers or a hemostat and pull out the fuel line.

A hemostat actually works very well for this project. In addition to gripping and pull, the hemostat can also clamp and hold the fuel line if necessary.

Installing a New Fuel Line

You can either install a molded fuel line or just a straight piece of fuel line.

Connect one end of the fuel line to your carburetor and thread the other end through the hole and into the fuel tank. If you’re using a straight piece of fuel line, be sure to leave enough line to give you extra to work with.

It’s a good idea to change your fuel filter since you have it out anyhow. It’s a relatively inexpensive part and might as well be replaced right now.

Firing Up Your Chainsaw

Once you have the fuel line connected to the carburetor and the other end connected to your brand new fuel filter, replace the fuel cap and tip your chainsaw sideways to see if the leak has been stopped.

You’re now ready to fire up your chainsaw and get back to cutting wood.

Snowblower Recoil Repair

Last month we got ready for the wood cutting season with a post on starter rope repair for your chainsaw. This week we’re going to help you repair the starter rope for your snow blower.

If you haven’t already read it, last year we wrote about an overall pre-season snowblower tuneup. This year, we’ll discuss making sure your snow blower will start when you need it to by installing a new starter rope.

Removing the Starter Rope

There are just four nuts holding the starter recoil in place. Once those nuts have been removed you can pull the recoil off the snowblower. Whether your rope is already broken or just frayed and needing repair, the easiest way to extract the old rope is by cutting it with a side-cutter and pulling it out with a needle-nosed pliers.

When removing the rope, make sure you hold the recoil in place. When the rope is completely out, you can let the wheel gently recoil all the way. Once the old rope has been completely extracted, you’re ready to start replacing it.

Brand New Starter Rope

One thing to be aware of when selecting replacement rope is that you want to make sure you don’t get rope that’s too heavy. If your rope is too heavy, you won’t get as many revolutions, your spring won’t be as tight, and the rope will drag on the housing.

Prepare the rope by melting the ends so they don’t fray. Then tie a knot at one end of the rope.

When you’re ready to install the new rope, turn the recoil counter clockwise until the holes line up, then thread your new rope through the first of the holes. It’s a pretty tight fit, so you might want to use a needle-nosed pliers when you’re threading the rope. Pull the rope all the way through the hole on the wheel until it meets the knot.

Next you’ll find the notch on the wheel and turn the wheel so that notch lines up with the entry hole. Slip the rope into the notch and, making sure the rope stays in the notch, turn the recoil three or four times counter clockwise. This tightens the spring.

Holding the wheel in place, thread the rope through the entry hole and pull it all the way through. Hang onto the end of the rope and let the recoil pull it almost all the way in.

You can now secure your snowblower handle. Thread the end of the rope through the handle and tie another knot. Make sure it’s tight.

Final Testing

Pull the recoil a few times to see if it recoils like it should. If the spring still feels like it needs to be tighter, you can always insert the rope back in the notch and turn counter clockwise another single revolution.

Mount the recoil back on your snowblower and give it a pull start. You should now be up and running and ready for that big snow to hit.

Courtesy of rosipaw on Flikr

The cold weather is settling in and it’s again time to store your lawn mower for the winter. Here are a few tips to ensure you keep your lawn mower in top condition even through the long sleep until spring.

Clean the Outside

We went into a lot of detail on cleaning your mower deck in another post. You can click the link to read more about how to ensure your mower deck won’t be rotting over the long winter.

In addition to cleaning your mower underneath, make sure you brush away any debris from around the engine itself. A small, soft broom should do the trick, but for stuff that’s caked on a bit, you might want to use a wire brush. Just be careful not to scratch the paint or you’ll expose your mower to rust.

Clean the Inside

For starters, you want to store your mower with as little fuel in the tank as possible, and you want the small, remaining amount of fuel to have fuel stabilizer in it. So, before you put your mower up for the winter, it’s a good idea to add some stabilizer and then run the machine until it completely runs out of fuel. That will remove most of the fuel and the remaining fuel will have stabilizer in it.

Next, check the spark plugs, air filter, pre-filter, and fuel filter. They may need replacing, and least a good cleaning, or, in the case of the spark plugs, they might need to be regapped.

Final Thoughts

Finally, if you have a lawn tractor, pull the battery cables off to avoid any slow drain on the battery over the course of the next few months. If you have a charger, hook it up and keep the battery on a trickle charge over the winter months.

Take these steps to prepare your lawn mower for winter storage and you’ll make your start up job in the spring that much easier. Plus, you’ll keep your lawn mower in top condition and add years to its life.

Out with the Old

Remove the starter housing by backing out the four screws that hold the housing in place. Inside the housing is the recoil. The starter rope is held in by a knot on one end and the handle on the other end. Because your rope is broken, you should be able to simple pull the old rope out of the hole in the recoil.

Before removing the rope, be sure you hold the recoil in place with your thumb.

In with the New

With your thumb still on the recoil, insert the new rope by threading it through the hold in the recoil. It makes things easier if you’ve already prepared the new rope by tying a knot in the end. Tying that knot while also holding the recoil in place can be a bit of a challenge. You’ll save yourself a bit of a headache if you tie that knot ahead of time.

Once the new rope is threaded, look for the notch on the recoil. Insert the rope into this notch.

You’re now ready to tighten the recoil spring. The key here is that you make sure you don’t over-tighten the spring or it will break when you pull the starter cord.

You’ll hold the rope in the notch and turn the spool clockwise until you feel it start to tighten up. At that point, back the spool off one full turn to ensure you haven’t over-tightened.

Finishing the Job

Once the recoil spring is tightened (but not over-tightened), you’re ready to thread the new rope through the eyelet on the housing and the pull handle. Tie another knot in the other end, and you’re ready to mount the housing back to your chainsaw.

In a whopping three minutes, you’re ready to head back to the woods and do some more cutting.

Auto Parts

There’s something new at Discount Online Parts. After a ton of work, we are bringing you the best quality auto parts you can find online.

Our parts list will continue to grow, so check back often to see all our new parts.

Specialty Brands

We are offering great parts from major brands like Chevy and Dodge, but we’re also bringing you parts from companies such as Cragar, Scat, Grant and Sunpro.

Regular DOP customers (and really anyone who has scanned our brand listings) know that we pride ourselves in making DOP a one-stop shopping site for tons of brand names. You can expect the same as we grow our auto parts listings.

Commitment to Great Quality and a Great Price

As with all our parts, we remain committed to bringing you only the best parts at the best prices. We’ll never settle with selling you a cheap part that is doomed to have your equipment back in the shop in short order.

In addition to offering you a great price every day on the auto parts you need, be sure to visit our auto parts specials page frequently to find deals that go beyond our usual great prices.

Thoughts?

If you have parts or brands you’d like to see us carry, stop by our Facebook page or contact us and share your thoughts.

1. Hand sharpen the chain
2. Take the saw to the shop for sharpening

Oregon has revolutionized chain sharpening by adding a third option that brings the best of both worlds together in a powerful option that’s so lightweight you can take it to the woods with you.Revolutionizing Chainsaw Sharpening

Imagine if you could take the power, speed, and accuracy of a mounted sharpening system and give it the mobility of a hand file. That’s exactly what Oregon has done with their new PowerSharp system.

Watch this amazing video to see how you can sharpen your chainsaw chain in seconds while you’re in the field.

Which chainsaw you select depends, of course, on how you intend to use the chainsaw. If you don’t keep in mind the purposes you’ll use you new saw for, you might end up with a saw that won’t do everything you need to have it do.

Here are some tips on selecting the right chainsaw.

Gas vs Electric

There are basically two types of power for chainsaws. You can either get an electric model or a standard gas powered model.

Electric chainsaws are more environmentally friendly than their gas powered cousins, and that can be a big plus. However, electric power chainsaws just can’t generate the same power as a gas powered chainsaw. If you’re thinking of buying an electric chainsaw, you’d better make sure your cutting needs entail only the lightest duty work. Otherwise, you’ll just end up frustrated.

Gas power chainsaws are much heavier and require more maintenance than electric saws, but they can do a lot more work, and you don’t have to drag a power cord behind you everywhere you go.

Chainsaw Size

The bar length of your chainsaw will depend on the type of cutting you intend to do. If you’re doing light cleanup around your yard, you can get away with a 12-14” bar length. On the other hand, if you want to cut firewood, you’ll need at least a 16” bar.

Make sure the engine of the saw is sufficient to handle the needed bar length. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can simply switch out a 12” bar with a 18” bar and have a saw that can cut firewood. The engine must be powerful enough to handle the added friction.

A 30-40cc engine should be fine if you’re using a 12-14” bar and working around the house. If you’re toting a 16” bar or longer and heading out to the woods for your winter supply of wood, you’ll need an engine that’s larger than 40cc.

Ease of Chainsaw Repairs

One thing people often forget when buying a new chainsaw is whether it’s easy to find replacement parts. The excitement of having a new chainsaw can quickly turn to extreme frustration when you find out that you have to hunt for parts.

To get an idea of saws that have easy to get replacement parts, roam around our list of chainsaw parts. You’ll get a good idea of makes and models that are a safe choice when it comes to repair.

Selecting the Right Chainsaw

I little extra research before buying your new chainsaw can go a long way towards making you a very happy camper. Get the right chainsaw from the beginning and it will save you in the long run.