Around the mid 1980s, I'd had enough of pushing lawn mowers around so decided to build a small ride on mower. Hunting through the rubbish tips in the area, I found a 24" mower blade cover and seat. I also scavenged half a dozen Briggs and Stratton motors in various states of 'buggered', pulled the reasonably decent bits off them and pieced together one engine. At the tip I also found a couple of wheels, some pulleys, a mate had an old single speed, forward/reverse, gearbox which he donated, the gears were a bit worn so I built them up with rods I bought. I bought another couple of wheels, then sat down with my calculator worked out tyre diameters, gear ratios and approximate speed I wanted, came up with the final drive ratios, selected pulleys from the pile I'd collected, bought some chain and sprockets, welded up a frame, rear axle and clutch and put it all together.
It worked really well after a few mods: I used the fence as a brake for a while before discovering shifting from reverse to forward or forward to reverse worked pretty well and saved my fence from collapsing. initially I had the seat too far back, so when shifting from reverse to forward It'd pull a wheely, me ending up on my back with a mower on top of me. Excellent entertainment for the neighbours, but I only needed this to happen a few times before moving the seat forward a few inches. I had a steering wheel to operate the steering when I first put it together, but quickly removed that and replaced it with a tiller. The original clutch I built engaged when you put your foot on it, but I discovered If in gear and I hopped off, the mower would happily disappear down the street by itself, so converted it to push down for go.
I used this mower for near on 20 years before moving to a place with lawns so small the mower was of no use, so dismantled it and threw it down the rubbish dump. Amazingly, the motor never gave any trouble at all, and was still going well with original points and plug when I dumped it. The gearbox with welded up gears also never gave any trouble. Our little chihuahua, liked to join us in everything we did, mowing the lawn being no exception. so I bought an ammo box, mounted it in front of the tiller and every time I'd roll out the mower, little Tobe would bark at me until I put him in his ammo box.
Here's a couple of pics I took of it not long before dumping it. Tobe had moved on to the big kennel in the sky before then, so his seat was removed.
It worked really well after a few mods: I used the fence as a brake for a while before discovering shifting from reverse to forward or forward to reverse worked pretty well and saved my fence from collapsing. initially I had the seat too far back, so when shifting from reverse to forward It'd pull a wheely, me ending up on my back with a mower on top of me. Excellent entertainment for the neighbours, but I only needed this to happen a few times before moving the seat forward a few inches. I had a steering wheel to operate the steering when I first put it together, but quickly removed that and replaced it with a tiller. The original clutch I built engaged when you put your foot on it, but I discovered If in gear and I hopped off, the mower would happily disappear down the street by itself, so converted it to push down for go.
I used this mower for near on 20 years before moving to a place with lawns so small the mower was of no use, so dismantled it and threw it down the rubbish dump. Amazingly, the motor never gave any trouble at all, and was still going well with original points and plug when I dumped it. The gearbox with welded up gears also never gave any trouble. Our little chihuahua, liked to join us in everything we did, mowing the lawn being no exception. so I bought an ammo box, mounted it in front of the tiller and every time I'd roll out the mower, little Tobe would bark at me until I put him in his ammo box.
Here's a couple of pics I took of it not long before dumping it. Tobe had moved on to the big kennel in the sky before then, so his seat was removed.
