stainless steel hose clamps! Two per side! One above bolt one below.

AJ

Did the hose clamp trick - it seems pretty sturdy....we'll see when the first snow hits.

Although, I was a little disappointed that it works....Sears has a nice, shiny, 24" 2-stage self-propelled, electric start blower on sale....

Yeah, I shoveled about every 4 hours in that storm except once. Big mistake.

If you have enough surface on the handle lock washers should give those wing nuts some grip.

The problem is not that the washers aren't holding - it's that the handle deforms under pressure....and the wing nuts are very tight.

The design itself is bad - there's only one attachment point, and it acts as a pivot under too much load. It happens when there's just too much snow for a 3.5 HP single-stange, non-propelled blower.

For now, the hose clamp fix seems to be working. If winters are going to be as bad as the last one, I'll likely have to go bigger, but for now, I'm OK with the smaller blower.

That makes sense. Glad to read those versatile hose clamps worked.