[medic75]

After driving 250 (500 round trip) miles for a 450 snow blower, I found it was a 451. The only difference I can find in these two models are the gear ratio. After attempting to order the 450 gears and shaft, I found that they are no longer available and were quite expensive also. This created plan B - a smaller pulley. With the gear ratio of the 451 being about 2.58:1 and the 450 being about 1.86:1 (0.535) it makes sense to me that I should be able to go from the stock 7 inch pulley to a smaller 5 inch pulley and solve the gear reduction problem. This change, if my calculations are correct, should give me a 40% increase in speed on the input shaft and create a speed which is slightly faster than the 450, simulating a gear ratio of 1.84:1 (0.542).

Any thoughts?