I got my first when I purchased my house in 2014, Woman I purchased from was a widow and the blower had been sitting since her husband died 5 years earlier so I offered her $150 for it, A bit more than I should have but she was a good friends in-law and I got the house cheap. It was the beginning of me working on these things too. Thus how I got my Snapper 6/22 which I'm still using until I either get the ariens mess fixed or I buy a new larger one.

 

The first one I purchased is my current snowblower, a Snapper 8265 which I purchased new in 1996.
The first snowblower I used was a Toro Power Handle with a snowblower attachment.

 

This 55002 was the first i bought. It followed a hand me down from dad.

 

In the early '80s I bought a Ariens 5hp 24" width. Ran well but had 6" tires and chains. Was a bear to try to get traction with the thing. After a year or so I was given a 24" 7 hp John Deere with 10 inch tires. You could lock the auger lever and latch the drive handle on and that blower would go through the toughest EOD piles. Used it till the mid 90's when I bought a 11 hp 28" John Deere.

 

I had 2 Jacobsen Sno-Bursts given to me, 1 after the other, from relatives, so after almost 10 years of those, a 2-cycle single stage MTD (from the local Tru-Valu hardware store) was a big step up. It had a terrible design problem - the upper part of the metal body casing had a circular cutout for access to the spark plug, with a plastic plug cover. But the engine was too tall / the cover was too low, and sometimes, the spark would short out against the edge of this cutout. I think 1 time it even sliced through the spark cable. I couldn't take it any more, so after maybe 5 years, back to the hardware store, and they had MTD's answer (Yard-Man model E285) to that problem - basically the same unit (4 cycle Tec 5 HP now) but the entire upper part of the body was now a very bright yellow plastic, so no more spark shorting out. The metal part is green - so yellow/green like JD but with the wrong shades of yellow & green. I still have it & it works as well as it ever did, but the Ariens 2-stage is the primary one now.

 

I bought an MTD gold 5.5hp 24" about 2003. I had it a few years and sold it to my buddy. It ran great until about 2 years ago when it started to suffer from valve issues. We filed some clearance back but it was a temporary fix and needs an engine swap in short order. He hasn't tried to start it this year and I don't know if it even has enough compression to fire.

 

My first blower was a brand new Yardman 7/24 with a Tecumseh snow king.
Was a very reliable machine. Had it from 2000-2008 and only replaced a few belts and one friction ring while I had it.


I sold it in 2008 to get a bigger machine with a larger hp motor.

 

1996 MTD 5/22 bought new in October 1995. I still have it and runs great. Nothings been replaced on it except I put some new tires on it this last fall and it will get a new carb this summer.

I still have my first two shovels from 1989. The corn scoop I quit using when I got the blower but the other one is one of those curved ones that works good for pushing snow in to piles.

 

1983 Craftsman 8/25. Lasted 25 years till I sold it in 2008 and replaced it with another craftsman (its a Husqvarna ST 227 but with red paint on it) which had power steering and a headlight. Still using that one, but have added an impeller kit, a throttle control plate to the B&S engine, gas shutoff valve and heated grips and an extended oil drain pipe out the back of the engine instead of using the side drain which leaks oil all over the wheel clutch mechanism and generally makes a big mess. I also put on an extension to the deflector chute to try and keep the blowback to a minimum. Jury is still out on that one, since we haven't had any serious snowfalls in the last two years, so far.

If I can find the right alternator, think I'll put a stereo system on it in spring.

 

A White Outdoor 12hp 32" bucket, father in law exchanged it to me vs a car trailer I had. A monster, even though it was made of cheap thin sheet metal, nothing stood in the way of this machine. lasted me bout 4 yrs before I sorta broke it. Long story short, I split some logs a day before a big snowfall and evidently didn't clean up properly. Unfortunately, it ate a big chip of maple, once it hit the impeller, it jammed and stalled the engine. Bent impeller, bent impeller shaft, shattered impeller bearing, even the keyway on the engine output shaft almost sheared off, sold it dirt cheap as is.


*sigh*


It was a yr old when I got it, those freaking machine were sold $2200 (CAD)

 

First snow thrower was a used 1979 Ariens ST724. I got it in 2004. I traded $150 worth of labor for it. This winter it didn't want to start. No Spark! I didn't feel like messing about with a condenser and points system so I re-powered it with a Predator 212 engine.

Didn't even get a chance to try it with the new engine before selling to my father because he needed it more than I did. I will have to visit him and try it out.

Now I have to decide if I still want to get the original Tecumseh running and if I do, what do I do with it?

 

My first blower is my signature, still going, never had the head off.
Sid

 

the '66? omg man!! Props on keeping it going!!! happy 51rst birthday for the murray 20sixer!!!!

 

MTD 10 yrs ago sold it to my friend and he still uses it with no trouble at all!!!

 

I just bought this one used a few months ago. Of course it hasnt snowed enough to use

it yet


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Craftsman 4/22 single stage snowblower from 1980s. I think it was about 22 inch wide. I think it was 4 hp, 4 stroke engine. Can't remember if it was piece of junk or I just didn't know how to take care of it and it was falling apart and not run right. My family liked everything from Craftsman back in the day, until we bought this snowblower. Had it a few years and decided to cut our losses and move on.

Bought a Toro Powerlite 16" after giving the Craftsman away to someone that knows what to do with it. The Powerlite was a noisy little bugger, but it was fun and quite peppy. So simple, lightweight, reliable, and so easy to work on. I still have one today, not the same one, but a 2007 model. I believe it was one of the last years of production for the Powerlite.

 

I bought my first house in 1981 and it came with an old Craftsman 18 (Homko) in the garage... I replaced it in 1987 with a new Honda HS80K1TAS, whose GX240 engine has just been transferred to my wood chipper.

 

vets day 1987 wife called me at work to say there was 18 inches on the ground, stopped at the near to where i was working toro dealer and got his very last machine a 624 powershift ran it till 2007 when i found a new looking 97 824 powershift fast forward to 2017 when i got a 928 powermax ohxe which isn't built anywhere like a PS

 

after being alive for over 50 year s and shovelling snow I finally bought my first blower at about age 55-56.

a honda hs624 wheeled. still have it.

 

My first snowblower was an ancient Homko. The local community airport used it for 20+ years and sold it to me for $15 in 1981. Other than change the oil and a new spark plug, I never had to replace or fix a single thing. It actually worked reasonably well with the steel wheels. I sold it for $10 and bought an old Toro Snow Hound about 5 years later.

 

I had never owned a snowblower until we bought a house. I tried shoveling the driveway one time and said F-THAT. This was a few years ago. So I went out what any normal person does, I picked up every single free snowblower that was on facebook marketplace, craigslist, letgo, offer up, etc... Created a fleet of over a dozen snowblowers to see which ones worked the best. And it didn't snow. So I sold them all and kept the Ariens st824 and restored that one and I've been using that one since. But I did realize that there are plenty of really good sub $100 dollar blowers out there that need very minimal work and its a fun way to make a little extra money to fund my hobbies.

 

2003 Ariens 1128 PRO. First bunch of years, very little snow. I felt dump blowing 3" with it. Then 2011-2013 hit, with multiple blizzards, 18" plus storms, and the grand daddy in 2013, 38 " legitimate with 5 foot drifts. Basically the hero of the neighborhood when others had 5 horsepower 2 stages and single stage machines.

 

My elderly neighbors gave me a 1987 Toro 521 when they moved into assisted living. Never really ran that great. I like(d) to shovel for exercise so I didn’t use it much. Found this site and it inspired me to re-power with a Predator. Great little machine now.

But the first one I bought was a used single stage Toro. Two stroke with quick chute. I love it. For most of the snow we get here in Minneapolis I can clear it as fast as I can walk. For most of my life I thought they were inferior, but they definitely have their place.

 

My inlaws gave me an old single stage 2 stroke NOMA Grand Prix snowblower after we bought our first house around 1990, it was a real POS, so ended up shoveling most of the time. We bought my father a new Yardman snowblower in the early 90's, so I inherited his 1967 Ariens (which I still have). In the late 90's I rescued a 2 stroke 1983 Toro power shovel from the trash.
When we moved to our current home in 2018, it came with a 2010 MTD Gold snowblower. It wasn't up to the task of a large driveway in the snowbelt, so sold it and purchased my first snow blower a 2018 Ariens 28 SHO. In 2019 I purchased an electric Earthwise blower for the 2 second story decks.

 

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How can anyone toss that 2 stroke Toro power shovel in the trash? Shame.

 

I was looking for that power shovel several years ago. Never had any luck. Those were as rare as pink unicorns. I'm sure they are fun to use.

 

my yard machine in front of the Ariens was the first blower that i bought. had a blown up friction disk i assume from someone power shifting. luckily i had the another yard machine that was just roached to take parts off of. otherwise it would have been an expensive fix. i think this winter will be the 4'th winter with it and i have been pretty happy with how it performs.

 

had a blown up friction disk

Wow, I've never seen a friction disk that was that bad!