Snowblower issues

My buddy's brother was selling his snowblower since he was moving and no longer needed it. He said whenever it would get hot (let's say 15 minutes of so) it would die and once cool it would start. I haven't looked into it too much yet, but have a question about it. It's a 27 inch craftsman 8.5 hp snowblower. Whenever I go to start it, it hisses quite a bit. It's something that I haven't heard from an engine before. I first though possibly a coil causing the starting problem once hot, but seems to have low compression when pulling. That's leads me to think the valves are out of adjustement or could the head gasket be blown? It starts right up, but that hissing... Thoughts, ideas?? I only paid a hundred for the blower and it's maybe 4 or 5 years old and looks new.

I haven't checked yet to see if things are loose. There's quite a few covers I'll have to remove to pinpoint where the sound is coming from. I figured I would get some ideas, before tearing into it. Sounds like I have a good place to start at.

Well I tore into it this morning, it's a bad head gasket. I'll check with a few places tomorrow to see if anyone has one in stock.

Swedishchef said:

I was going to suggest head gasket.

If you can't find a new head gasket, go buy an Ariens You'll blow to the snow all the way to Alaska!

Andrew

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I have 2 tractors and a 5' grater blade, but one tractor has turf tires and the other is a diesel that starts hard in wintertime. For a hundred dollars, I figured why not. Hopefully it's just a head gasket, and at 5 dollars for the part I can't go wrong. Hopefully I don't need to use it anytime soon!

xman23 said:

It looks like that was run for a long time with the head gasket issue. Is block the burned as well?

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I don't think so. Luckily it appears no other damage was done. Unfortunately I'm still waiting for the company I ordered the gasket from to ship.

heat seeker said:

BTW, nice photo!

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Thanks! The photo was taken with my new S5 galaxy phone.

It's fixed! Within 20 minutes of getting the head gasket, I had it back together and running. I let it run a while, re tourqued the head bolts and put it back together. You can feel the compression now, and it starts first pull. Now I'm ready for the snow.