# Crary Bearcat 824



## wdb (Dec 15, 2013)

I don't appear to be able to relocate my old Crary Bearcat thread to this new subforum so I'll put a link here instead. Short version: I had the beast below for ~20 years, until the desire for tracks took over and I traded it for a Yamaha. A beast of a machine, very reliable. Hard to handle though, compared to the Yamaha and the Honda that replaced that; the Bearcat really beat me up, whereas I feel like I could clear every driveway in the neighborhood with the Honda.

http://www.snowblowerforum.com/forum/snowblower-reviews/7794-crary-bear-cat-824-a.html

Here's a picture of the old beast.


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## Big Ed (Feb 10, 2013)

wdb said:


> I don't appear to be able to relocate my old Crary Bearcat thread to this new subforum so I'll put a link here instead. Short version: I had the beast below for ~20 years, until the desire for tracks took over and I traded it for a Yamaha. A beast of a machine, very reliable. Hard to handle though, compared to the Yamaha and the Honda that replaced that; the Bearcat really beat me up, whereas I feel like I could clear every driveway in the neighborhood with the Honda.
> 
> http://www.snowblowerforum.com/forum/snowblower-reviews/7794-crary-bear-cat-824-a.html
> 
> Here's a picture of the old beast.


Someone traded you a Yamaha for it?
What year was the Bearcat?


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## wdb (Dec 15, 2013)

I'm not sure what year it was. I bought it 'new' in 1993 but I believe it had been sitting in storage for quite some time. I traded it in for the Yammie at a local shop. I believe the Yamaha had been used by a snow clearing service because it showed a lot of signs of hard use. Plus parts are really hard to come by in the US. But it did convince me to go with tracks, so I sold it the next year and got a Honda.

The Bearcat was built like a tank! The augers had to be 1/4" steel for example. All I ever had to do to it was change the oil and lubricate the chain drives etc. It ate belts, and one of the belts was a weird pitch that was hard to find. I adjusted the auger clutch once in the 20 years I had it.

But it was a "bear" to use. The hefty construction, inline drive setup, and impeller turning in the same plane as the auger, all added up to a long, heavy machine. Quite a bit of leverage was needed to bring the nose up. Plus the gearbox-with-actual-gears was a pain to shift. Compared to the Bearcat my current Honda almost feels like it drives itself. So I miss the old orange beast, but not really, if you know what I mean.


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