How to Troubleshoot a Sears Snowblower Transmission

Turn off the Sears snowblower and allow the Briggs & Stratton motor a few minutes to cool.

Find the motor's flywheel. The flywheel is the circular piece at the top of the Sears snowblower's engine assembly. Take out the bolts holding the flywheel's iron cover in place, using a socket wrench. Remove the cover.

Check the fins on the outside of the bare flywheel. There cannot be any burrs on these fins, otherwise the flywheel may fail to operate, disrupting the transmission's power conversion process. File these burrs away with a hand file.

Set the flywheel's cover back in place and screw in its bolts with your socket wrench. Attempt to run the snowblower to see whether your repairs worked.

Remove the Sears snowblower's flywheel cover once more, if the machine still will not run.

Position a flywheel pulley over the snowblower's exposed flywheel so that the two pulley arms extend down against the outside of the flywheel. Use the socket wrench to turn the pulley's center bolt clockwise until the pressure that's created allows the snowblower's flywheel to come loose. This will provide access to the top of the snowblower's clutch shaft.

Remove the Sears snowblower's oil pan in order to gain access to the bottom of the clutch shaft. This rectangular pan can be found at the bottom of the engine block, directly below where the flywheel sat. Remove its bolts using your socket wrench and slide the pan off the machine.

Use your socket wrench to remove the bolts along the Sears snowblower's clutch shaft in order to loosen it within the engine block.

Strike the top of the clutch shaft directly below where the flywheel previously resided. Use a rubber mallet; do not use a regular hammer. Striking the clutch shaft at this location once or twice will dislodge the shaft entirely.

Slide a new clutch shaft into the Sears snowblower's engine block via the slot the previous shaft occupied. Follow your disassembly procedures in reverse to reassemble the engine block around the shaft.