@Gordon Nichols posted:I retired a hard-working member of the family today.......
My trusty Ariens Snowblower. I got it used back in the 1980's and if my local Ariens repair guy is right it was built back in the mid-1970's making it around 45 years old. I've repaired and refurbished it many times over the years, upgrading the motor from a puny, 6hp Briggs and Stratton to a beefier, 12hp Tecumseh that would power through anything, as well as adding (for a while) lawn mower and chipper-shredder attachments as the seasons changed, so you can see that it got a lot of use over the years. It came with us to Rhode Island where it blew out five neighbors during the infamous "Blizzard of 2004" and then returned with us to Grafton to take care of the driveway ever since, not to mention doing runways for our two Jack Russells in the back yard in the shapes of famous race tracks; Watkins Glen, Summit Point and Daytona's Road course. It has eaten snow, leaves, small branches, mouse condominiums, one or two pairs of gloves and an occasional Worcester Telegram newspaper, buried in the snow, and kept on blowing - A true Hero, indeed, after all these years.
Being a true New England frugal Yankee, I would have kept it going forever except that (1.) a few key parts, like the power unit's basic housing, are truly worn out, (2.) my local Ariens parts guy (who is even older than me by a few years) has retired and closed his business and (3.) the other Ariens place for parts tells me that they stop carrying parts for anything over 30 years old, which means that those key parts are all No Longer Available and I'm stuck.
So....... I stripped it of it's chute cleaner-outer-gizmo (those are always handy), drained the gas and oil out of it, removed the battery and drove it slowly over to the Scrap Metal Recycling place in Auburn where I got $16.20 for it as scrap. Didn't seem fitting for something that has worked so hard in well over one hundred major storms over it's 45 years, but there you go. That includes the year that we got a total of 11 FEET of snow during the season. It still could blast snow up over the huge drifts and accumulated piles throughout the season - A true workhorse.
All I could do was watch as the yard crane took it away...
Tomorrow, I pick up it's replacement, a brand-new Ariens snowblower (I know, don't faint - I bought a new one, not a used one). The new one is roughly equivalent to the old, with the added touches of dashboard controls for the auger/impeller, chute rotation and elevation - Something I always had to run around to the front to do on my old one, AND I added one "frill", just for me, because of the mild frostbite I got when working on the farm as a kid - handlebar hand warmers built in. THAT is something I'm looking forward to.
So what does this have to do with cars and/or Speedsters?
Well, on my way home from the scrap yard I stopped at the NAPA store and bought a second Grote 12004 Convex mirror to put on the passenger side of Pearl to match the driver's side. I got the Autozone one off with a gentle spray of Carb cleaner between the Autozone mirror and the Areo mirror glass - Spray, wait 2 minutes, get your fingernail under the frame of the Autozone one and it popped right off.
Now I have matching, $3.00 Grote Convex Outside Mirrors on my Speedster, just to spite Dave Lear, resale price be damned.
I think I would have found a prominent place in my yard for such a faithful workhorse and let it revert to nature naturally.
This is my Aunt Billy Jean, my mom’s youngest sister, showing me the ins and outs of a combine that she and my mom worked on as kids.
BTW, it’s D L Earl+476. It’s always confusing because people confuse the second L with a 1.
