In the past week, the US has seen some really intense weather. While some parts of the country, like The Northeast, have seemingly skipped winter and gone right to spring, other parts of the country that usually have mild weather, like Texas, have been getting some decent snow storms. Even though it was damn near 70 degrees out on Christmas up here in New England, I know that it can change at any given moment. But wait… you are reading a car blog and not a weather report, so you are probably asking where am I going with this, right? Well, last weekend, I took advantage of the unusually mild weather to awaken my snow removal fleet from its slumber, including my very strange Yard Man Snowbird. It may not have a V8 or some other weird engine attached to it, but it’s definitely Bangshift-worthy. Check it out below to see why!
This old beast is a Yard Man Snowbird, built in 1969 by the former small machine manufacturer Yard Man. They only made this machine for a couple years before they got gobbled up by the much larger company MTD. It’s a very rare machine, and aside from the muffler, it’s completely original! It’s one of the first snow blowers that had a modern look to it, much like the contemporary Ariens machines that are still very popular today. Things start to get weird in a hurry once you examine it closer.
First thing that differs from a modern machine is the auger itself. There are no hand grip auger controls here. The blades stick out beyond the hood, and when this beast is running, they are ALWAYS turning, so you really have to pay attention to what’s going on with this one! If you click the image above, you can see what I’m talking about. Note the sweet “JDM-Style” angled muffler! When I picked this thing up locally a few years back, the previous owner fitted this on there with a bit of cast iron pipe somehow. I couldn’t source an original replacement, and it works, so on it stays!
Here’s the control panel. This baby has 2 gears: Forward and Reverse. To get it to throw snow, you first start it, and then grab the giant musclecar-esque T-Handle shifter and shift it into Forward. Then, there’s a small lever with a white handle to the right of the chute crank that you pull back toward you. That releases a pin that holds the wheels in place. The auger drive that’s always going also powers the wheels, and once you pull that back, it will keep going unless you put it in neutral or put the pin back in. You can actually shift it into gear and let it loose around your yard on it’s own. Yes, I’ve tried it! Yes, it’s a terrible and dangerous idea! This machine is definitely from another time, when safety took a back seat to getting stuff done. And before use, make sure all sticks, stones, and BONES are out of it’s path. The owner’s manual says so. Brutal!
On most two-stage snow blowers, there’s a crank that moves the chute via a screw and a gear. It’s very simple, and it works. Whoever designed this thing decided not to keep it simple and to make the ENTIRE CENTER BARREL move when you turn the chute crank! It’s chain driven, and the chute angle also changes when it moves. It’s really cool, and the machine’s true claim to fame. Click on the picture to see a GIF of it in action.
An ancient 5hp Tecumseh powers this old relic. As far as I can tell, it’s the original engine. I’m pretty sure this one predates the later “Snow King” line of snow blower engines. It starts right up and still runs great after all these years. I used to have the same engine on my old go-kart!
All of the old instructions on the machine remain intact. To stop this ancient juggernaut, you press and hold that black spring-loaded button, which manually chokes out the carb. No keys, fuel shut-off, or anything like that. You have to wrestle it dead!
If you were wondering what model this is, it’s a Yard Man 7040-0. The Internet is a very big place, and I’ve only seen a handful of these out there. It’s definitely a rare one. This thing should be in a museum!
So yes, I think we can all agree that this is a very strange machine. It was built during a time where small equipment manufacturers where still trying to figure out what works, and a lot of the funky ideas employed in it’s design were not seen on other machines of it’s era, or any era afterwards. That said, it’s a cool piece of small equipment history.
Do you have a weird, old machine like this? Let us know in the comments below!
My father saw the gif of the rotating center barrel and said “Hey, is that a Yard Bird? I had one of those. It’s out in the woods behind the farm and that’s where it belongs” Clearly didn’t have the fond experience you had. He also said his the auger only turned if the wheels were turning
We happen to have some odd equipment hanging around, so I’ll add to the list.
We have an old Van Dorn corded electric portable drill that was built in the 20s or 30s (The patent for it was filed in 1910!). Its got a massive body with wo handles coming out of the side, a great big gear reduction drive sticking off the motor and a curved chest plate for pushing against it with your body. The chuck turns ludicrously slow but if the bit ever catchs, god help you, because it will walk you right around.
http://www.modusmodern.com/woodworking/VanDorn.jpg
Another oddball we have around is our 1958 Internation 350 High-Utility wheel tractor. These are a rare bird, only made in 1958 and production was under 1000 units. It’s the standard gas 350 but with special front kingpins and rear axles that made it sit considerably higher. Also had power steering, a PTO and a Torque-Amplifier setup. Sadly, the Torque Amplifier broke years ago and parts are hard to source. Ours isn’t a show queen either, it’s got a bucket loader with forks on it and is used as a workhorse in the woods, although we are careful with it, as a spindle got broke in the 80s and was impossible to source
Not our tractor, but it gives you an idea what they look like
http://www.tractordata.com/photos/F000/321/321-td3b4.jpg
Growing up in CT during the late 60’s & early 70’s, we had a Snowbird. It seemed like that was the machine of choice, because many people I knew had the same basic machine. Was it dangerous?…let’s just say it could weed out stupid people! It paid to keep a broom stick around to un-jamb the chute. The tires were solid rubber if I recall…not much grip, but that wasn’t a bad thing as it helped prevent overloading the augers. Fun times!
Yes, this thing has solid rubber tires, I forgot to mention that! It does clog a lot in the wetter stuff, but so does my larger machine. I usually spray some silicone spray in the fan area and chute, which helps a little.
My father walked by and saw the photo of the rotating central barrel and immediately said “Is that a Snowbird? I had one of those. It’s out in the woods behind the farm and that’s where it belongs.” Apparently he didn’t have the same fond memories as you did Tony
He said that the auger on that one only turned when the wheels were turning.
I like the logo- that Pelican looks PRETTY HAPPY to be ‘eating’ up the snow!
I’ve got one in the driveway right now. A little more modern than that one, it does have safety handles for the auger and drive. Still only 5hp and yes has solid rubber tires.
Grandpa loaned me one of these 25 years ago during a huge snowstorm.My kids still remember that day.What brutal rock slinging animal.
Its the greatgrandfather of mine. Lawnboy mowers had the one set of wheels close to each other on one side. Looked weird to me.
When I lived in Buxton I was renting a mobile home that had been purchased cheap after the old couple that built the place had died. There was one of these Snowbirds there, but my recollection was that it was blue and had a much longer chassis to it, but I remember the Pelican logo on it.
I wanted to get it running, along with a pile of other mechanical junk the old man had stashed in the shed attached to the back of the garage, but the dumb fuck that bought the place after he died decided it would be too much trouble to empty out the shed, and he had an itch to play with his new bulldozer so he just bashed the whole fucking shed down, outboards, snowblowers, lawn mowers and all, and spread it all over the fucking yard. Was a lot of junk, but there was plenty of good stuff in there that he wrecked just because his attention span was about as long as his dink. Some people.
I never got into the snowblower far enough to see if it had the rotating barrel snow chute, had I knows that I would have tried harder to salvage it!
There’s a whole Yahoo users group online of people who collect and restore these crazy machines. The one in this article is a relatively new Yardman Snowbird. There were pre-Yardman versions that were bigger and more powerful. The originals were actually built by a company called ‘George’. There were Snowbirds, Lawnbirds, and other kinds of birds. https://groups.yahoo.com/group/SnowBirdSnowblowers/