(first posted 5/22/2016)) That’s my dad at considerably younger than my present age, proudly mowing the front lawn of his and my mother’s recently-acquired house in suburban Philadelphia some years before I arrived. He’s using a Sears Craftsman 20″ push mower, a ’68 model quite possibly bought at a grudge sale, with magnesium(!) deck, Foldamatic handle (you loosen two big red plastic wingnuts and fold it yourself; that sound anymatic to you?) and a Sears-spec Tecumseh LAV-35 engine with a vertical-pull starter. Here it is in the Spring 1968 Sears cattledog, for $97.50 with grass catcher ($810 in 2022 dollars; whee!):
One just like it showed up some years ago in remarkable condition; I spotted it during a late-night run down a Fleabay rabbit hole (no, I didn’t buy it):
Right along with the charcoal barbecue grille and the electric garage door opener and the other tasty fruit of the postwar suburban boom—atop the heap, really—is the rotary lawnmower. Whether in Levittown or Homestead or Pleasant Valley or Southmoor Heights or Vista View Estates or The Wuthering Twin Oaks Bellevue Mews at Bel Air Manor, your suburban house almost certainly had a lawn. And as you didn’t want to incur the scorn of the Joneses or risk the wrath of Mrs. Kravitz (when she wasn’t selling Chevs) and the rest of the Homeowners’ Association busybody brigade, you strove for lawnly perfection. That meant keeping it green, weed-free, and “manicured”. None of this just happened to happen; wanna spur an economic boom? Accustom people to thinking of themselves as “consumers” and make sure every suburbanite buys stuff that’ll require perpetual spending. Like a lawn big enough to warrant the purchase and weekly use of a power mower and its fuel and upkeep, and addicted to water—better look into a built-in sprinkler system; the Joneses already have one—and chemicals also (b’gosh!) available for purchase.
And purchase did they ever…
…and ever…
…and ever!
Quickly upon its mid-1950s advent, the rotary mower fairly shoved the reel type to the margins of the market. And aside from your house and the car(s) in your driveway, what better billboard for your cashflow—the Joneses may well be your neighbours, but you’re theirs, too—than a machine that draws attention to itself by making noise as you walk it round the yard in swaths about 20 inches wide every week? No real place for tailfins or a Breezeway backglass on a mower, but no matter; there was still puh-lenty of This Year’s Modelry to be done. In terms of how well a mower worked, how versatile it was, how easy it was to use (or how cheaply it could be built, but shush about that til later) some of the changes made substantial improvements. Others were either the wrong answers, or the answers to wrong questions.
Such a one was the windup (or “impulse”) starter. In the late 1950s they were the very latest thing. The idea was to turn a crank to wind up a heavy spring, then trip a release mechanism so the spring would unwind and turn the engine.
Get a load of this fabulous 1968 Toro Whirlwind thusly equipped; what do you guess this mower cost when it was new, in today’s money?
When the Toro Whirlwind range first launched sometime in the mid-1950s, they were advertised like this:
One seldom sees a windup starter in any condition any more. Me, I have two different new old stock Tecumseh units, one round and one square, but that doesn’t count; my tastes are so far off the bell curve it’s a long-distance call from here. Someday someone as crazed eccentric as I am will come along and free up some garage space by taking them home off me. Here’s Briggs & Stratton’s first design:
The knob on the side extended a spur between adjacent flywheel fan fins when turned to the CRANK position, thus immobilising the engine and allowing spring tension to build. Turning the knob to START withdrew the spur, permitting the flywheel to spin. Trouble was, the knob could be turned—or, with some wear, could float on its own—into CRANK with the engine running, which would damage the flywheel fins and/or decapitate the spur. The later design replaced the flywheel spur with a lever-operated pawl that blocked the starter drive itself until the lever would be flipped into START. Much better.
Other than that early goofup, Briggs’ was by far the safest of a very unsafe lot. The trouble was that once wound up, such a starter was well and truly armed and dangerous. An adult could walk away from a wound-up mower and a child could touch or jar it, setting off the spring and starting the mower. Or consider the homeowner or mechanic facing a machine with a wound-up impulse starter and a jammed engine or blade: the spring inside, even when not wound up, was strong enough to break bones or worse should it escape its keeper. There was even a Clinton (not the American politician, but the Iowa-based engine company) windup starter for severe-duty applications, with two springs, one atop the other, and a giant bruiser of a drive cup:
There were detailed and warning-laden instructions in the service manuals for neutralising the spring before discard by torching it (at arm’s length) to red-hot at several locations around its circumference within its keeper, but that didn’t address the problem of the armed and jammed mower. Only Briggs & Stratton had the foresight to provide a clever, elegant, simple, and cheap means of putting the pin back in the grenade—by pulling it out: hold the crank handle with one hand, remove its central screw with the other, and the inner end of the spring (which anchored on the central screw) was let go so the wound-up tension was harmlessly if loudly released. And this starter, like Briggs’ coaxial rewind rope starters, used that company’s thoroughly ingenious crankshaft-mounted, centrifugally-disengaged sprag clutch—a highly elegant piece of engineering (the patent for which eludes my search efforts; anyone?).
All in all, the windup starter was a keen idea, but it just made the engine starting effort different, not less; recalcitrant mowers still reduced owners to sweating and swearing. The windups were just too dangerous; even before there was any strong consumer product safety commission to insist, these went away by the early ’70s. Anyhow, better ignitions, compression-relief systems, and miniature automotive-type electric starters were making mowers easier to motivate:
Better carburetors, too, but sometimes not. Look at this Tecumseh gas tank, air filter, and don’t-call-it-a-carburetor setup:
It was factory equipment for a couple of years in the mid-late ’60s on Sears Craftsman mowers—do see the 1966 Popular Science writeup—so the design priorities would’ve been (1) cheap, (2) cheap, and (3) cheap. Even so, the nearly featureless 20″ push mower in the article had a 1966 price of $85, or as we say in 2022, $759 (y’think that’s a gobstopper? The aforementioned fabulous Toro was about $988 worth of mower in 2022 dollars!).
Engines with this –carburetor– had no speed governor per se: no air vane, no flyweight assembly, no linkage. The system, in theory, used airflow through the venturi/intake pipe to limit engine speed to 3800 rpm, which wasn’t a concern in the ’60s but was unnecessarily fast (extra wear and tear; greater consequences of striking something immovable, extra noise…) and is considered dangerously fast today when most rotary mowers run at around 2800 rpm. I say this –carburetor– used airflow-based speed management “in theory” because I’ve never found anyone who remembers these mowers fondly. They seem uniformly panned as hard starters and poor runners. Note the very shallow fuel tank, which was to minimise the tendency of primitive –carburetors– like this to provide a richer or leaner mixture depending on how high they had to lift the fuel out of the tank, which in turn depends on the tank’s state of fill. Tecumseh recognised this was a pile of poo, and didn’t do it again. Briggs & Stratton made extensive use of this kind of simple suction carburetor, which is apparently known as “self-lift” carburetors in the patent world. The Briggs item was marketed as “Vacu-Jet”, and was somewhat less minimal—it was controlled by an air vane speed governor and worked passably well. Don’t forget, set the mixture with the gas tank half full so it won’t be too rich at full or too lean at empty.
Let’s make it a trifecta: Tecumseh brought out capacitive-discharge electronic ignition in 1978, and Briggs launched their “Magnetron” system in 1982, but Clinton figured out how to get rid of breaker points in 1961: a “Spark Pump” mechanically-actuated piezoelectric ignition system devised by Clevite.
Y’know that red plastic pushbutton on a gas barbecue or fireplace? One push, one Clack!, one spark? This is like that, but pressed mechanically once every compression stroke by a lobe on the part of the camshaft that extended above the roof of the crankcase. It was commercialised successfully, but not extensively; Clinton’s market share never approached that of Tecumseh or Briggs (who apparently also invented a piezoelectric ignition system, but never marketed it).
Now, I had a real thing for lawnmowers—particularly their engines—when I was a kid—I couldn’t have a car or a motorcycle, but a lawnmower had an engine and wheels, and that’s a pretty good start when you’re eleven! I pestered the engine companies for brochures, then cut out the pictures of engines and pasted them on my bedroom walls. I wish I’d kept the brochures intact in a binder, which I suppose is like normal people wishing they’d treated their baseball cards more carefully when they were normal kids.
My early lit included Paul Dempsey’s TAB Books on the topic, and a mid-’70s fixit book with a funky green-and-white cover, written by…Castellano, was it? Yep, this one; what do we see powering the mower on the cover? It’s a Tecumseh LAV engine with a windup starter. If you’re particularly sharp of eye, you’ll notice the photo has been printed wrong way round (or maybe this what we’re looking at is the model for Australia and the rest of the Southern hemisphere).
About those “LAV” engines I keep mentioning: unlike Briggs-Stratton’s and Clinton’s purely numerical engine models, Tecumseh named their engine families; the numbers came after the sometimes-a-bit-contrived name. For example:
LAV: Lightweight Aluminum Vertical (Tecumseh inherited this from Lauson)
TVS: Tecumseh Vertical Styled (an industrial designer had a go at the LAV’s blower shroud for updated appearance, in the process creating more space under it so the engineers could use a more effective flywheel fan; offer more different fuel tanks, and move the ignition coil out from under the flywheel)
TVXL: Tecumseh Vertical eXtra Life (TVS with cast iron cylinder liner, upgraded exhaust valves, etc)
TNT: Toro ‘n’ Tecumseh (Toro wanted some brand-specificity, and they bought enough engines that Tecumseh said okeh; the changes were mostly cosmetic)
ECV: Exclusive Craftsman Vertical (Sears bought a lot of engines and wanted brand-specificity; these were essentially LAVs with changes were both cosmetic and mechanical)
LEV: Low Emissions Vertical (TVS with reshaped combustion chamber, less carburetion slop, etc; these hadn’t yet come out when I was horsing around with engines)
OVRM: Overhead Valve Rotary Mower (OHV version of TVS)
Alongside from topical library books were the factory service manuals; oh gawd, yes. I bought one or two of them, but wheedled many of them directly from the engine manufacturers for the cost of a couple of postage stamps and a handwritten letter; that works surprisingly well when you’re a kid, or at least it did back then. I saved up—$22, I think—and bought a giant early-and-late-production Tecumseh master parts catalogue, about a foot thick, which I spent hours poring over. I used its section dividers as inspiration in response to my science teacher giving me an “N” (“Needs Improvement”, roughly the equivalent of a “D”) for my notebook organisation; the revamped notebook raised my mark to an “E” (“Excellent”, which translates to “A”).
I had a big two-volume complete Clinton parts and service manual, too, which I wish I hadn’t discarded; it had some of the most thoughtful explanations of basic engine theory I’ve ever seen, and was full of fantastic illustrations; because internet, I was able to roust up some samples—not in very good quality, but get a load o’ those mortally-terrified flowers, and the hapless operator being flight-hauled behind the theoretical mower charging along at 18 theoretical miles per theoretical hour:
Oh, and there was this completely bizarre book I found at the Denver Public Library, written by one “Barnacle Parp”. That nom de plume and the rambling stream of consciousness that forms the book’s text suggest heavy drugs were flushing around in the outdoor power equipment literary circles of that time.
I had no interest in sputtering, stinking 2-stroke engines by any maker except for a passing curiosity with Outboard Marine Corp’s reputably durable Lawn Boy items. Still don’t. As for real (4-stroke) units, I devoutly, chauvinistically favoured Tecumseh (née Lauson) engines. Beancounters had been loosed by the time I came round, the annual model change fanfare had died way down, innovation in areas other than cost reduction had almost flatlined as mowers and engines got good enough for most purposes and American industry got smug, and Briggs’ engineering was too cheapcentric for my taste. Mower engines are a safe place to have strong opinions because the stakes are so low—it’s easy, watch this: vertical-pull starters as a class are dumb, but the Briggs unit is dumbest of all because of the drag it places on the rope, which is routed around corners, and the slow speed at which it cranks the engine. Yes, it works, but it’s an offensively clumsy piece of thoughtlessly-designed junk compared to the elegance of the sprag clutch arrangement used with their horizontal-pull and windup starters. Tecumseh’s vertical-pull starters, except for their very early first design, were differently but equally questionable, though some of them tried to stave off mowing drudgery by dint of entertainingly-labelled handles:
And I preferred Tecumseh’s primer-equipped float carbs, positive-displacement oil pumps, and mechanical governers versus Briggs’ cheaper, more primitive air vanes; oil splash dipper-flingers, and those flood-o-matic Pulsa-Jet carburetors—especially the plastic ones, believe it or don’t—Briggs perched atop the inconveniently-low gas tank.
What I actually had was an eye for industrial design, and a keen interest in it, though I wouldn’t have been able to describe it that way at the time for want of vocabulary. Inspired by the bummed brochures, I made drawings in pencil on newsprint paper of engine designs along Tecumseh’s philosophy, with carefully-rulered lines pointing to various features and blurbs about each one. Not –all– many of them had engineering validity, but—eh!—I was 11; whaddya want outta me?
I always thought it’d be fun to put together a cool vintage Toro Whirlwind with a hot rodded Tecumseh engine—it’d’ve probably been their last piece of thoughtful engineering, the OVRM overhead-valve iteration of their TVS engine, dressed up in period style with oil bath air cleaner; one of their rough-service diaphragm carbs (always wanted to play with one but never got the chance); the fuel cap with the built-in gauge; that giant round funnel-shaped oil minder; a windup starter (natch), a cover plate for the hole in the deck for the dumb down-discharge exhaust Toro used for way too many years—that’s the wrong way to do it unless the goal is to envelop the operator in a cloud of bladefan-propelled exhaust, not forgetting the gasoline of that time was leaded—and an above-deck SuperQuiet muffler from Tecumseh’s Taylor Muffler division. Red deck, white engine and shroud, lotsa decals. Never had all the right parts at the same time. Got that muffler on the shelf, though; perhaps it’ll go with those two NOS windup starters.
But I’m not in voluminous company, as it seems; a lot of people had no love for the Tecumseh engines. My success with them was almost complete, though. The first was on my father’s ’79 Craftsman 20″ push rotary. One of my early memories is going with him in the nearly-new Caprice to pick it up. No more groovy metallic blue-green magnesium deck; this one had a red stamped steel deck assembly probably made by Roper. It was powered by a white TVS-90 stamped with Sears’ 143.XXXXXX number rather than “TVS-90 XXXXXX”, for the sole apparent purpose of adding a step to parts lookup. Fixed-speed (no throttle control); primer-equipped chokeless carb making the proud AUTOMATIC CHOKE decal on the starter housing a laff (maybe that was another fib by the “Foldamatic handle” guy?). It had a replaceable cylindrical-can pleated paper air cleaner; electronic ignition, and a toggle-type spark plug short-out engine stopper helpfully labelled STOPPING CONTROL—a secondary (heh) reason not to wear open-toed shoes while mowing. It had a “3.5 RESERVE POWER” decal on the fuel tank; that was a thing on Craftsman engines. They were labelled with the usual and customary number—3.0 for the 7.5 cubic inch engines; 3.5 for the 9-CID engines; 4.0 for the 10-CID engines, and 5.0 for the 12-CID engines, but instead of horsepower or HP, always with that screwy “Reserve Power” claim. No word on how a “reservepower” differs from a horsepower. Here’s that mower in the Spring 1979 Sears cattledog for $115 ($458 in 2022 dollars):
That mower was the victim of a mechanic named Craig, probably dead now, who ran a shop called Engine Clinic. I’m pretty sure he machined the crankshaft almost all the way through just above the blade attachment point and told my dad it was a real good thing he’d brought the mower in for a tune-up, because the blade could fly off and burst through the deck. He let us take home his Snapper mower with a heavy-duty 5-horse Briggs engine; he was trying to sell dad a new mower. If he was also trying to give me nightmares and daymares with that flying-blade warning, he succeeded.
The Snapper was several large cuts (har) above what we’d been using, but…no sale. The Craftsman, with the assent of Consumer Reports, was replaced by a Lawn Chief № 51D 20″ push rotary, about $170 ($430 in ’22 bucks) from True Value hardware. I’d militated for a Tecumseh engine, and this mower had another TVS-90. Not quite the same as the one on the Craftsman: it was black rather than white; had adjustable engine speed via a throttle lever on the mower handle; instead of the replaceable-can paper air filter it had Kleen-Aire—a really good piece of engineering—and it had operator presence control: the engine was braked to a stop in under 3 seconds if the operator let go the deadman bail at the top of the mower handle. That a concept most of two decades old when it was mandated in the US for 1982.
The Lawn Chief was a basic, generic mower. There’d’ve been nothing the matter with it if not for my overly-eager tinkering. Thing was, I had that giant parts manual and it was just full of temptingly swappable upgrades: two-quart fuel tank rather than one! In white rather than black so as to easily see the fuel level while filling! Bigger, quieter muffler! With nickel-plated finish! The list went on and on, but I had no money for parts, so I had to hasten the demise of stock parts in order to necessitate their replacement. Scheming little rotter! I am sure dad knew—he had to know—that plier crush marks don’t just appear on perfectly good polyethylene fuel tank outlets. He questioned me about it; shoulda busted me for it, but he didn’t. I wish I felt better because my monkeyshines didn’t actually cost a whole lot, but I don’t.
I’d been all for that fancy Snapper Craig had tried to sell dad, but dad wasn’t into spending big bucks—hence the Lawn Chief. I kept agitating (and, erm, sabotaging) for a fancier mower, and eventually found a juicy one at a shop not far from our house, run by Ron. I don’t remember the name of the shop; Ron also had another shop called Southside Lawn and Leisure, which had a terrific mower junkyard out back. One day while I was nosing around at the nearer shop, probably ogling the accessories rack, Ron asked me “Why do you spend so much time messing with lawnmowers, a kid like you?”. He meant a kid whose folks were positioned such that other options were available to him. I said, “Because I’m good at it”.
The de luxe used mower I’d found was an ’84 Snapper № 214X1PS with a Tecumseh TVXL105 heavy-duty 4hp engine. Self propelled by that company’s intriguing disc-drive setup, earlier versions of which had offered a Reverse position that was the same as the other drive speeds except completely dangerous. It had electric start; it was the commercial-duty “Extra Tough” model (metal ball-bearing wheels, other upgraded stuff); rear bag + side chute, the works with extra mayo, fries and a large drink. Of course I wanted it! Quite an upgrade, but it hadn’t had my kind of fastidious attention from new; it had chronic carburetor troubles and lost at least one ignition module (which might’ve been my fault—this time not on purpose). I should have just put on a new carb. Or maybe a new engine; some fastneners stripped in the aluminum block, which made it hard to secure the shroud. Only troublesome Tecumseh I had. That mower was the decal-festooned (yay!) heavy-duty version of the one on the cover of the brochure:
The Snapper was eventually replaced by a new Toro, a 1990 model. 21″ rear bag/side chute/mulch kit, self-propelled, and it had a blade clutch: instead of the engine being quick-stopped before the operator could put their hand or foot in harm’s way, just the blade was braked in a hurry; the engine carried on running for greater convenience. That year there were engine options: Toro’s new GTS (for “Guaranteed To Start”) 2- or 4-stroke engines made by Suzuki, or the Tecumseh OVRM-40, and OHV version of TVS-90, with a nifty lost-foam cylinder head casting. I was rabidly, ignorantly, brassily anti-Japanese at the time; Bob, the owner and chief mechanic of the shop I frequented on thoroughly somewhat-less-than-entirely-reputable East Colfax Avenue in Denver, said the Suzuki was the better engine, but “I know this kid, and if he’s keeping it running, let him pick the engine!”.
So we got the Tecumseh. There was some difficulty sealing the 2-piece exhaust system, and I think I put one carb kit in it, but half of that was just ’cause I wanted the sexy new red primer bulb rather than the boring ol’ regular ol’ normal ol’ black one. (Why, no, matter of fact, I didn’t have many friends as a kid…what makes you ask?)
Early on, a sooty smudge on the mower deck near the muffler outlet indicated it was running rich up at our altitude. The carb had no mixture needle, though. I wrote one of my numerous letters to the poor guy at Tecumseh—Ken Yoho was his name, and I’m sure he was sick to damn death of my annoying questions and requests for decals. But he sent me the part number for the “high altitude” adjustable main jet/bowl nut, which I installed and adjusted. Presto, no more soot. The mower itself was rather good. The transmission needed one rebuild, which was not too thrilling, but that’s it. I played around with different blade designs, mulching auxiliary blades, etc., aided and abetted by Bob.
When it came time to clean out the house after dad died and mother was moving to DC, I put the grass catcher through the washing machine a couple times, cleaned and carwaxed the deck and engine, and took it back to the shop. Bob was busy in the back; one of his employees hollered, “Hey, Bob, this guy says you know him and wants to consign his Toro.” Bob glanced up from his work out back and said “Oh, him? I’m sure it’s in perfect condition; write it up.” A few days later, he called me in; he’d got $350 ($587 in ’22) for it when a guy came in, leaned on it, and asked if he had any good used mowers in stock. When Bob said “That one you’re leaning on”, the guy couldn’t believe it was used and bought it straightaway (original purchase price a decade previous: $450 or so, which is $995 in ’22—refer again to those adjusted prices from back in the good ol’ days!). When I went to pick up the check, I gave Bob my giant Tecumseh parts manual; I’d moved on from engines with one cylinder to engines with six of them in a row at a 30-degree incline, and didn’t have space to keep or move the book.
I don’t have a mower any more, because I don’t have a lawn any more. What used to be lawn at my house is now bark mulch and native plants. Everyone’s happier this way: me, the bees, the birds, and the bankbook. But in Autumn ’15 when I happened to be in Denver for the first time in many years, I ducked in at the mower shop, still in business, and asked ol’ Bob if that parts manual might still be around. It was eventually found under a thick layer of dust and precipitated cigarette smoke, probably untouched since shortly after I’d dropped it off. I hauled it back home with me. The exploded views are still fascinating, as are my ancient annotations.
On the other side of those big bushes my dad’s mowing near in the lede pic of this post was the driveway, where resided—read all about it in my COAL series—another of my very early inspirations, my folks’ 1970 Dodge Dart:
Great writeup. I too am a small engine fan, going to service a 2006 Tecumseh Enduro powered generator that I picked up yesterday. 2nd on the service block today is a 1936 B&S model BH. My mower at the house here is an older Tecumseh/Craftsman rear bagger no choke or user throttle with the first series blade brake that I fished out of the dumpster behind work. Starts on the first pull usually, not bad for free and built in ’88 or so. Tecumsehs seem to either run really well or be extremely fussy with little in between.
One of the Denver-area engine shops I used to
pesterfrequent had an old black Briggs horizontal-shaft engine ‘way up high on a shelf. Float carburetor, round/cylindrical gas tank, rope-sheave start, and I couldn’t get close enough to discern other details. I lusted after it, but it was not on offer. Pity, because B&S have long been very good about supporting their obsolete engines to the maximum practicable degree. How’d it go with the BH?im 60 now but as a teen in Australia i would scrounge the local dump at age 13/14 and drag home any mower I found,pulled em down with my non mechanical fathers minimal tools,figured out how things worked,2 and 4 stroke,hated school but read library books on engines,got a few running mostly Kirby lausons and victa 2 strokes,i had bad grades at school poor maths,mum said if they improve I could be an apprentice mechanic,i smartened up and scored apprentice mechanic with the Melbourne and metropolitan board of works and also the Victorian railways,i had my pick so I chose the obvious closer one the board of works,there were 2 positions and 200 applicants for the board of works,ive been a truck driver for 40 years though!
Well, that was a deep dive; learned a few new things. Yes, we had “inherited” a 25″ (!) mower with that first design BS crank start when we moved to Baltimore in ’65. And yes, it soon started going bad, as the vanes in the flywheel started getting chewed up. It would increasingly not hold up to a full crank, popping free in a highly obnoxious manner, until it became impossible to start. Man, did I hate that machine; I was 12, and pushing a 25″ (!) push mower on our steep back yard was insanity. Several times, the running mower flipped on me, and only through a quick dodge did I escape its acrobatics. I started using a rope to lower it down the steep bank, but pulling it back up was a royal bitch. I’m amazed that I survived.
It was replaced by the smallest possible 18″ cheapo steel deck BS mower, which felt like a featherweight in comparison.
Clinton engines: yes, they were still around some, but never interacted with one.
I had something of an irrational bias against Tecumseh all my life, although I don’t know where it came from. probably just the intrinsic tribal bias since we always seemed to end up with BS engines. Our neighbor in Iowa City bought a very nice magnesium Craftsman in 1963 or so, which I was the sole (unpaid) designated user. It was a very nice machine, but it was a while before I realized it was a Tecumseh engine.
My only Tecumseh is my riding mower, a cheap low-end 38″ MTD bought cheap ($599) at the end of the season in 1996 or 1997, with a OHV13 engine. It’s still going, after massive abuse. But it has a miserable plastic carb bowl assembly that I have to replace at least once per year but I get them cheap (imitations) from Oregon Parts ($12), but they’re actually better than the factory ones.
I had to replace the starter/generator, and I had to replace the primary gasket between the upper and lower half of the engine, as it was slightly pinched/faulty from the factory, and started leaking oil badly after about three years or so. That was a bit of a chore. Other than that, it’s a good motor…
I have an old BS with the vertical pull starter, and although it’s no better than the horizontal pull, it works just fine for me. since I’m tall, I somewhat prefer it.
I’ve got a strange bias against Tecumseh too, probably also because I’ve only had B&S. Well, I grew up on 2-cycle Lawn Boys, but as an adult it’s been B&S all the way.
Tecumsehs have caused more problems for me than Briggs’; they seem to throw more rods and that recoil mechanism is pure stupidity.
I also have a 1996-vintage MTD 38″ riding mower, but it has a 14HP Briggs engine.
After a few years it stopped dead while mowing the lawn which turned out to be a failed rocker arm. Installed an upgraded part and it’s been fine since. Surprisingly the carb has been OK all these years except the built-in fuel cutoff started leaking. This let the engine fill up with gas, hydrostatically locking the piston! “Fixed” that with a cheap inline shutoff valve. Surprisingly there was no apparent engine damage, it’s been fine for years since. (I did flush it through pretty well with fresh engine oil.)
Aside from that, this year I had to do some patching up on the cutting deck with pop-riveted sheet metal as it had really taken a beating in 20 years of hitting rocks, uneven ground, branches, etc. (New decks are available but the $450 price tag is too rich for my blood.)
I also have a similar vintage Scotts rotary self-propelled mower for getting into spots where the MTD won’t fit but it doesn’t get much use these days. Instead I’ve been using a weedeater with a small 2-stroke engine to get into the tight spaces. Those little two-stroke jobs are a different animal to contend with.
I know in the past I’ve had 1960s-vintage magnesium-deck rotary mowers. That type of lightweight construction was very popular at one time, don’t know if it’s still used.
We got a Sears Craftsman push mower with a slightly-upgrade Tecumseh engine (cast-iron cylinder sleeve) in 1988 that I thought was a very nice motor. It had the round pleated paper air filter when most others motors at that level were still oiled foam, a nice feature. It started and ran well, had plenty of power and lasted at least five year until the then ex-wife wanted something self-propelled and next husband traded it. I know several people who work on motors who dislike the Tecumsehs, but I liked this one just fine.
I also had a Sears Craftsman push mower that I bought new in 1987 with a Tecumseh engine. “Unfortunately” it was a 20″ width and they stopped selling parts (blades) for it. It had the blade clutch, which worked well, but I had to drain the oil from the top, it always got in the combustion chamber and caused the mower to smoke (if it started at all). Had it almost 30 years, just replaced it 2 years ago, wouldn’t start, despite redoing carburator and fuel system…darned ethanol seemed to degrade whole fuel system. It was well built, my new mower (also Sears) is lightweight, but much more chintzy (I had to fix the height adjustment when new, as it was poorly constructed)….oh well, guess these are disposable now, not meant to be fixed (much).
Several weeks ago I borrowed (quite long-term) a Troy-Bilt chipper/vac from my father-in-law. I have several huge piles of brush to chip and I’m hoping to use the chips for a walking trail around the property.
This chipper was built in 1991 or 1992 and has a 5 hp Tecumseh engine. It has been flawless, especially given that I changed the oil on it for the first time in its life shortly after I acquired it. I wish I could say the rest of the machine is equally flawless.
Like you, I don’t have warm fuzzies for Briggs & Stratton engines. I have actively avoided purchasing a push and riding mower with those engines, going with Honda for the push mower and Kawasaki for the rider.
I have one of those old monsters too. Made quick work of some rotten branches after being recommissioned after about a decade. The self propelled died though and wow is that beast heavy
Another small engine fan here! When I was a kid in the seventies, I actually had a business repairing small engines. My town at the time (Tigard, OR) was very rural and lots of small engines. There was only one shop in town, (who shall remain nameless) and everybody hated them. And I thought I was the only one to write the factories for decals and owners manuals! Briggs was very good in that department. I still have a factory Clinton service manual, among many others. Great write up, made my Sunday morning 🙂
I actually kind of wonder if there wasn’t a fairly steady stream (okeh, trickle) of letters from 9-to-12-year-olds asking for literature and decals. Today’s equivalent seems to be on YouTube, where can be found an endless wellspring of videos posted by youngsters puttering with engines.
I envy your Clinton service manual, too!
I’m amazed at how little the Snapper HiVac deck and bag design has changed over the years. My slightly-decrepit 90’s era Snapper with 5.5 HP BS engine is my go-to mower, over my wife’s 2014 Toro Super Recycler with Honda GCV 160 engine. We always bag the grass, and the Snapper’s suction can’t be beat.
Great piece, I thought I was a geeky kid, I think the author may have me beat.
Yeah, the basic design of that deck is a good one. I kind of fancy the early die-cast aluminum ones vs. the later stamped steel, but that change was made long ago.
I have a Toro SR4. I mulch because after years of research I determined it was best for my grass. The SR4 is a great mulcher. Bagging it’s just adequate.
OK I mulch because it’s easier.
Snapper has a better bagging design, lately though it appears their quality has slipped.
Love my B&S SR4 though, it’s about 7 years old. The personal pace rear-wheel drive is the absolute best self propelled system I’ve ever used, very natural. The B&S has been flawless. I think my SR4 was one of the last years they were still built in Minnesota.
Say what you want about Briggs & Scrapiron, but I love the 20hp Intek V-Twin on my John Deere tractor, even with its Japanese (Nikki) carburetor. I too, also preferred Tecumseh engines back in the day for push mowers, due to the oil pump
“Briggs & Scrapiron” FTW! (Have you read this? I recommend it!)
I have not, but I have read some of his marine books. Iron Fist is awesome
Wow. Just wow. Growing up in Northwestern NJ on 10 acres, 4 of which were landscaped lawn, yard care became my job as the oldest son around the age of 7 (with some help with the heavier or more dangerous jobs). Every Spring brought the inevitable drama of yard machines not cooperating, Dad dragging them off for repair or replacement, and my perusal of The Sears Big Book for whatever newest and greatest new-fangled replacement I considered most suitable. These infernal contraptions became my original “fleet” too, and I took great pride in their care, maintenance and use. I dare say that I’m fairly impressed with the job I did at a tender age and with little real know-how of keeping nature in check and carving out an oasis of manicured wonder from what truly ached to revert back to not-so-old growth forest. Unfortunately when I opted to take a small engines course in high school (I was definitively NOT the typical student in this coursework, but felt compelled by my interest, if not aptitude) I managed to turn a previously operational Tecumseh 3.5 HP engine (IIRC) into a boat anchor, which probably still gathers cobwebs in a dark corner of my deceased father’s garage. Mr. stern, your curiosity and quest for learning warrant commendation! “My” plot of pseudo-suburban paradise, which is now lorded over by Dad’s second wife, who has life rights to it before the deed goes to my half brother, is now maintained by a weekly service provider and has slowly become smaller and smaller as nature encroaches as she’s inclined to do. Just yesterday I sat outside with the dog as a crew mowed the condo complex I reside in now. Hearing and smelling the job unfold before me was bittersweet, as it is every Spring.
First power mower I used was a reel type, don’t remember the brand or motor. They do seem to actually do a better cut as opposed to the rotary design. Tougher to maneuver, though.
It was replaced around 1965 with a Sears Craftsman rotary with Clinton wind up handle engine. I used to push it all over the neighborhood and mow lawns for five dollars. One customer was a woman in a iron lung, she had a huge plate glass window in her living room with the lung positioned to watch the world go by. All us kids would smile and wave to her as we walked by on the way to school and home.
She was watching me mow her front lawn when the mower it a rock and flung it into the plate glass window, hitting it with a loud pop. Luckily the glass didn’t break, her eyes got really big as the rock hit the window.
I have a 2004 Toro FWD with Tecumseh 6.5 HP engine. Neighbor gave it to me, she was unable to use the rope starter. Wind up handle would have worked well for her if they were still made. After mowing the lawn twice I decided to check the oil. There was no oil to check, at least according to the dipstick. It took almost a quart. Seems to still work fine, have used it a few times since. Tecumseh seems to now be out of business.
All the rest of past mowers have used B&S engines, which all worked well. I did burn up one by not replacing the primer bulb and dribbling gas in the carb, after a couple of seasons of this the engine lost compression first smoking and finally not starting and throwing oil out the muffler when trying to start it. Years later I used the muffler to replace one on the next mower with the same engine, and it threw out a huge cloud of smoke from the oil for a couple of minutes.
I do wonder how on earth we made do with 3hp or 3.5hp engines, when mowers today allegedly have 6hp or more.
The Toro FWD side discharge mower my dad bought in the early 80s had a small BS engine that was only 3.5hp, and it did fine. The side bag was a pain because the mower wanted to cut unevenly when the bag got full (and heavy) but we rarely bagged because the lot was almost an acre and it was more trouble than it was worth.
I mowed a neighbor’s lawn with his 70s era Toro that was very similar to the “take the bull by the horns” ad above…that dumb thing wouldn’t start unless it was left out in the sun for a little while to warm everything up.
Ah, the memories.
“Allegedly” is the keyword. There was a legal kerfuffle about it, and another in Canada. About the time those class-action suits were picking up speed, a blogfriend posted some “Look, I got a new mower” pics. Close pics of the deck and engine showed decals:
TROY-BILT
21″ Cutting Deck Self-Propelled Mower
Rear Bag – Mulch – Side Discharge
Briggs & Stratton 675 Series
190 cc
6.75 ft-lbs gross torque
per SAE J1940 as tested by engine mfr
@ 3050 rpm
Interesting mislabelling of its output in “ft-lbs”; the unit they’re trying for is the pound-foot, abbreviated lb·ft. Pedantry aside, it’s notable they advertise torque. Horsepower has been the advertised output for many, many decades, and that’s where the class action suits come in.
For many years a 3- to 3.5 horsepower engine was standard equipment on an 18- to 20-inch manual-push rotary mower, and a 4- to 5hp engine was standard on a 20- to 22-inch self-propelled mower. As you say, these outputs were quite adequate. About 15 years ago, advertised horsepower figures began to climb. Engines didn’t get materially different except for carburetion changes to reduce exhaust emissions, but the advertised output started zooming suspiciously upward. ~7.5 cubic inch (123 cc) engines that had produced 3 horsepower for years suddenly claimed to have found a fourth horse. ~9 CID (148 cc) engines that had produced 3.5 horsepower for many years were suddenly advertised at 4.5. ~10.5 CID (172 cc) 4-horsepower engines were suddenly 5-horsepower engines. ~11.5 CID (188 cc) 4.5-horsepower engines were magicked into 5.5-hp ones, and ~12 CID (197 cc) 5-horsepower engines were relabelled as 6, and then as 6.5.
There is less than zero call for anything like six or seven horsepower in a walk-behind rotary mower, but there’s an obvious marketeering advantage to bigger numbers because consumers are all size queens.
Now, the formula for deriving horsepower from a torque figure is
[(torque lb·ft) (rotative speed RPM)] ÷ 5252
So if we assume their “6.75” figure is correct and plug it into the formula, we get 3.92 horsepower. That is a much more realistic-looking figure, if we start with a piston displacement that produced 4.5 horsepower for many years and then factor in the likely effects on output of a less unrealistic test protocol and the exhaust emission cleanup. A further real-world check on the numbers is provided by what happened when Tecumseh made an OHV version of their 9.06 CID 3.5hp flathead engine: output was rated at 4hp. Extensive experience with both versions gives me pretty solid confidence in the accuracy of those two ratings relative to each other.
So lawyers got rich, companies coughed up cash, and now small engine output is advertised in lb·ft, which means bigger numbers on the decals, which means happy-spendy consumers.
Oh, how I hated the side bag! It just got in the way of…everything. I was always facing the wrong way when I came to any obstacle, it seemed. Eventually I got to where it wasn’t an issue in our yard, but it was definitely a problem whenever I would mow a neighbor’s yard when they were out of town. That, and emptying the damn thing every 5 minutes.
Of course the only reason I even had to contend with it was because Dad bought the cheapest mower he could find, a 20″ side-discharge Murray. It was, however, notable that the first one he brought home developed problems with the Tecumseh engine the second or third use; he returned it and got a similar model with a B&S, which ran maintenance-free for 6 or 7 years. I don’t even think we ever changed the oil, on recollection. It still ran, albeit poorly, when it was replaced with another, nicer, thankfully rear-bag B&S Murray. That one I eventually inherited once he decided he didn’t feel like mowing the lawn anymore and hired someone.
I started with a Toro when I was a kid, which Dad replaced with a Lawn Boy… Then I got into commercial use. I ran a big Gravely for years with a Snapper for clean up. The other guys on the crew had every kind of mower and engine imaginable. I got out of that work years ago, but for home use, I’ve had the same old Snapper for years. It’s from the early 70’s with a 5hp BS engine. It’s a brute… I keep saying I’ll fix the self propell, and clean it up. As yet, I just run it.
Barnacle Parp – a name that sticks in one’s mind. Our library had a chainsaw book by him. For a walk mower, I’ve done well with Snappers. Is it possible to mow uphill while bagging with a front-drive mower? Best outdoor equipment investment I ever made was a $999 vacuum leaf picker up towed by a lawn tractor. That, and a quality leaf blower, have paid for themselves many times over.
GIDDER’ DUHHN! 😀
After wearing out an aluminum decked Honda cutting our .75 acre lot, I purchased this 15 years ago:
http://powerequipment.honda.com/lawn-mowers/models/hrc216hxa
Still starts with one pull, original spark plug 125lbs
This was a great read, thanks. A family member gave me their Craftsman Eager-1 (Icalled it the Eager Beaver) that they purchased in 1980. It’s been to Lafayette, Houston, Sacramento, and Boise. Finally had enough carb issues that a mechanic would have wanted $120. Plus the wheel mounts had been replaced a couple times.
So, I went around the corner to the local Honda power equipment and motorcycle shop. I wanted the model that no one else wants: basic OHC motor, no drive system, no bag (always mulch). I got a brand new one for $150 under MSRP. It was brand new from 2010. Also got a 4 yr warranty and oil change kit. Funny that it sat in storage that long, again no one wants them. its simple and basic, might be my last mower.
We had a Morrison mower with a Kirby Lawson KAV74 engine great when it was running but the bigend needle rollers escaped and one went up the bore and totalled the engine, it was repowered with an Iron Horse two stroke that went for years, Tecunseh engines were sold by the outfit my dad worked at several came home to repower the Howard rotary tiller we had each one windowed the block finally the old man bought a B&S horizontal motor that out lasted the entire machine
I have an elderly B&S motor on my mower here started by a power drill windup and recoil arrangements dont last long when the engine gets cantankerous but get it up to approx 500rpm with electricity it goes every time.
Kirby were the Australian licensee/franchise/agent/whatever for Tecumseh, who produced Lauson (with a “U”) 4-stroke and Power Products 2-stroke engines. KAV74, per a Google search (and your needle-bearings description) looks to have been a 2-stroke unit.
I think it was a Kirby on my Dad’s Scott Bonnar reel mower that he preferred because he thought it cut the grass better. There are a couple of things I remember about that; doing ‘burnouts’ with the driven steel roller, and measuring something like 105 dB with a sound meter held at head height for science class homework (had to measure half a dozen things), no wonder my ears were ringing after mowing the lawn.
Dad had a Pace mower with Kirby Lauson engine with the wind it up and flick the lever starter, it would have been from the early 60s.
I wish I’d have thought to keep it. It would be a great looking vintage mower to have. Cast aluminium? deck in gold color with red trim and engine
I never realised the danger’s of those wind up starter’s until reading this.
I remember it causing some frustration for Dad sometimes, and I learnt some new words.
Talking about Tecumseh licensed production: in Germany we had a mower with an Aspera engine. I think it was produced in Italy. No wonder the Tecumseh seemed to familiar.
Yep, Tecumseh engines were made on licence in Italy under the Aspera name. With Dell’orto carburetors and, believe it or don’t, high-performance cylinder heads.
‘high-performance cylinder heads.’ – because Italy.
Yes two stroke.
I have owned several cheap mowers with B&S engines, and I’ve used B&S engines on mowers since I was a teenager in my neighborhood lawn-mowing “business.” What I can say is that the buggers were bloody awful in the 80s, fragile and hard to start. But somewhere during the 90s either they got better or I just had a run of great luck with them. I’ve owned 3 B&S-powered mowers in 25 years. The first one I lost in the divorce. The second one, my favorite by far, a Craftsman with a 6 HP engine, would cut through anything like nobody’s business and died only because I stupidly failed to check the fluids before I started mowing last season and it seized on no oil. I replaced it with another B&S Craftsman, an entry-level model. I supposed this would be the 3 HP engine if they still labeled them that way. Thing is weird — always sounds like it’s about to run out of gas — but it chugs along and cuts fine.
The king is my B&S Craftsman lawn tractor, in its 19th season and going great guns. It had one weird failure, in its first season: the steering gear broke. Sears sent me another one under warranty. And the hood welds failed; have the hood clamped on with generic vise-grips. Otherwise, this thing has only ever needed routine maintenance and replacement of wear items. Last season, the main belt finally gave way, and thanks to Sears Parts Direct online I looked up my tractor by model number and it told me what belt to order. Try doing THAT with one you got at Lowe’s. Super, super happy with my tractor. Photo attached.
The reason they got better in the 1990s (starting with the Quantum engines in the 1980s) is the switchover from the diaphragm carb to the bowl-type carburetor.
The diaphragm carburetors had a fuel pump that would be rendered useless by the tiniest air leak, and in my experience that is what usually did them in. I don’t know how many times I had those things apart, going so far as to use a fine-tooth file to flatten out the warped top of the fuel tank in a vain effort to get the carb working again.
Well-written article; I’m usually willing to read anything written by someone who knows what he is talking about, who knows, perhaps I will learn something. I never liked lawn mowing when I was growing up, my father had a two stroke push mower that could be difficult to start, at least by me. This mower was old enough that one started it by wrapping a rope around the top of the flywheel and pulling. That wasn’t even the worst part of it; to stop the little beast you had to push a metal flap against the spark plug and short it out. I usually took the easy way out and just pulled the plug lead off with a stick. Fortunately for me my younger brother was willing to deal with the ancient mower and took over lawn duties once he was deemed old enough.
After I got married and we bought a house I took up mowing again. I still don’t really care for it but look upon it as a necessary evil. The house we have now has a much smaller yard than the previous abode and it only takes 20 minutes or so to finish, at least the mowing, the trimming takes another 30-40 minutes. All I ask from my mower is that it start when I ask it to; the current mower has an electric starter, a very useful feature, as long as I remember to keep the battery charged.
I had a Sears mower with a Tecumseh engine. Instead of the knob locks for the handle, it had two ratcheting notches on the handle brackets. You had to push both ends of the handle inward to release the handle from those notches to fold it for storage. The stupid part was that you had to push both ends of the handle inward AND fold the handle upward, all at the same time. You needed two long arms and a third arm…or you pushed the handle upward with your head.
Stupid.
A few minutes with a file to offset the two notches made it so that I could release them one at a time. It would gave cost Sears (or whoever built the mower for them) NOTHING to make it like that in the first place…just a few brains to think about it.
Now you mention this, I remember it as you describe on the ’79 mower, and it looks to have been the case on the magnesium mower at the top of the article. I do recall two-arms-and-one-knee struggles to fold the handle over the deck; perhaps this contrivance is what was being referred to as “Foldamatic”. The plastic wingnuts were loosened to fold the upper half of the handle back over the lower half.
Great write-up!
My dad used to drag home any mower he found for free when I was a kid. We had a lot of Lawn Boys that people thought were dead but.. Not so.
Just now in his early 70s he broke down and bought a new Troy Bilt. He’s less than impressed. He actually hates it.
I was given this Ford LGT 125 Tractor recently and having no space or use for it I gave it to him. It’s currently undergoing a full restoration.
Nice machine, 16 horsepower with Hydro drive, mechanical and Hydro PTO.
Decades before desert dwellers in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico started putting rocks on their front yards, my parents bought their first and only house in El Paso. 1960’s pride of ownership dictated an emerald-green lawn, so thousands of gallons of water were dumped on our yard each Summer for many years. I don’t recall our first equipment, but my father upgraded to a Jacobsen rotary mower and McLane edger at some point. Purchasing these pro tools from the local landscaping company instead of laying the plastic down at Sears meant my dad was serious about his yard. I made some extra bucks mowing lawns in the neighborhood, and more than once a customer commented on the Jacobsen, usually expressing shock that they even made mowers for mere homeowners. Of course I had no idea what they were talking about at the ripe old age of 13. I sure wish I had that mower and edger today — I spent more time with them over several Summers than anything else but my bicycle. My first oil changes were done on yard equipment, and I’m sure that is true for a lot of car/motorcycle guys of that era.
Naming the Minneapolis-based company Toro back in 1914 proved prophetic. Some, if not all, of their consumer lawn equipment is now built in Mexico, home of the real toros. Their 1,700 Juarez employees can even take in a bullfight at Plaza de Toros if they so desire.
According to the owner of a local yard equipment shop which is an authorized Toro retailer and service center, the US built equipment is sold through Toro dealers and the Mexican built units (el Toros, as I like to call them), are sold through the big box home centers.
That makes sense. Sell the American made products through their dealer network, and the presumably cheaper stuff goes to Home Depot, etc.
No, that used to be the case, but as of 2015 even their higher end consumer push mowers and snowblowers are made in Mexico. I’m not sure about their commercial stuff or riders.
The do still only sell the Super Recyclers (SR4) through dealers. “Recyclers” are sold through box stores.
Dad had a “mutt” push mower when I was young – all I remember was he combined parts from two mowers to make one running one. It had a dark green deck and hardware store red wheels. It was put on backup duty when Dad bought a Sears Craftsman SS12 garden tractor when I was about six years old. Still has it (pic).
My own first mower was a push reel (human powered) – that’s all we could afford at the time. We also had a sweetgum tree in the yard – not a good combination. We were at that house for about 2.5 years, and then lived in apartments for several years before buying our next house.
My wife’s grandfather passed around this time, and we got his late 1970s Craftsman rider from the estate. The B&S engine only lasted me a year or so before ventilating itself, so I re-engined, probably with a Tecumseh. The transmission was the next to go (several years later), and a replacement was prohibitively expensive, so I bought a Yard Man (MTD) that blew its B&S after two seasons (since re-engined, and as all the plastic bits have fallen off and the deck rusted out, it’s used as a cheap ATV to pull my gravel driveway sprayer or a yard waste wagon).
I currently have a Honda-powered push mower that rarely gets used any more as I joined the “Church of the Zero Turn” about six years ago (after the Yard Man engine died) when I bought a Toro Z150 54″ commercial unit at auction for about $1500. Another $500 in parts and my mowing time was cut down by ⅓ on our farm. Unfortunately, its Kohler Command 20 now needs rebuilt or replaced, and there’s a bad hydraulic leak somewhere that needs attention. I’m using the Kubota TG1860G rider we had bought used for our son, as they later moved to an apartment and weren’t using it.
But, tucked in the back of the machine shed, I still have my push reel!
I prefer(ed) Tecumseh over Briggs&Stratton. The B&S mowers that I used had that carburator inside the tank and were godawful to work on. Parts were very hard to find because they had different springs for slightly different engines and such. Then they were real gas guzzlers.
I think it was in ’92 that I bought a lawn mower at Sears that happened to have a Tecumseh engine with 150 cc displacement and 1-pull start. It is still running great even though it takes now 2 or 3 pulls to fire it up.
Too bad Tecumseh does not exist anymore.
That’s discouraging, Wolfgang.
I went from a Yard Man(MTD) snow blower that gave us
only 5 good seasons to an Ariens that’s practically
bullet-proof – with a Tecumseh engine.
I hope there will still be support for it down the road should
I need it someday.
I found out about this last year when my wife was mowing. The dipstick decided to go for a walk and didn’t read or understand the label: “Caution! Rotating Blade!” This abruptly ended the dipstick’s excursion. Local small engine guys didn’t have the part and broke the sad news to me. E-bay to the rescue. I got a dipstick for $20. (I got the whole mower for $169, new.) I did a little research and found that Tecumseh was going bankrupt but managed to sell itself to some Brazilian outfit in time. The Brazilians let the quality go down the tubes and then Tecumseh was bankrupt for real.
@Daniel Stern: I got the double-bonus today of getting to know you a bit, and learning plenty about mowers (IIRC, Paul did a mower article some weeks back, which prepared me for all the expert detail in this one). I guess I’ve been lucky, never needing to get into carb rebuilds, etc.
BTW, I still have only the faintest idea what a “sprag clutch” is, but is this perhaps the B&S patent you’re seeking?
https://www.google.com/patents/US3040853
Thanks for the delightful read today–your effort appreciated. Perhaps my biggest chuckle was seeing “NOS” applied to mower parts; but, yeah, surely there are parts that sit on those repair-shop shelves for decades….
Thanks, glad you like my scrivenings! The patent you found covers some of the ideas used in the Briggs starter clutch, but isn’t the patent for that actual item.
I may have taken undue licence calling it a sprag clutch; some sources I double-checked in re your query specify that a sprag is a kind of spring-loaded pawl. I’m quite sure I have heard the Briggs clutch (improperly?) described as a sprag clutch, even though its pawls are balls and they’re wedged between driving and driven members by gravity and a ramp rather than by a spring.
The attached photo here shows the starter clutch with its cover removed. The outer body is threaded onto the top end of the crankshaft and serves as the flywheel nut. You can see there are six downward-inward ramps in the clutch body, each of which has a (stainless?) steel ball in it. The central member, with the six-pointed starwheel sitting in the middle of the clutch body and surrounded by the balls and ramps, is not attached to the clutch body. The shape of the starwheel means if you will rotate it anticlockwise, it nudges the balls up their ramps (they drop back down as each starwheel point passes, only to be nudged back up by the next point); that central member thus turns freely. But if you will rotate the starwheel clockwise, you can see how the balls will now wedge between the starwheel points and the ramp walls, transmitting your torque from the starwheel through the balls to the clutch body. Because the clutch body is firmly attached to the crankshaft, you also turn that. The squarish shaft protruding from the starwheel fits into a same-size receptacle in the starter’s pulley, so instead of you doing the turning, the starter does. Get the picture? When you yank the rope (or trip the windup starter), it rotates the starwheel clockwise, locks the balls, and spins the engine. When you let go the rope and the starter pulley turns anticlockwise to retract the rope, the starwheel’s anticlockwise rotation is not transmitted to the clutch body. On a horizontal-crankshaft engine, some of the balls will not be available to wedge the starwheel to the clutch body, because gravity will be pulling them downward to the outer extent of the ramps. This is of no consequence; there are always at least two balls wedged, and it really only takes one to transmit the starter’s torque to the engine.
Fine, but with the engine running and the starwheel held still by the stationary starter pulley (same relative motion as spinning the starwheel anticlockwise with the engine stopped, no drive transmitted) isn’t all that ball-joggling going to make noise and eventually wear out the ramps? No, because when the engine’s running the clutch body is spinning, and centrifugal force throws the balls outward to the far ends of the ramps, out of contact with the starwheel. No ball-joggling.
Simple, elegant, self-contained, inexpensive, durable, dependable—this is a very fine piece of engineering. Its details have changed a bit from time to time, but the same basic starter clutch has been in use since the late 1950s.
(As to NOS small-engine parts: just you go look on eBay!)
Wow–talk about “service after the sale”! You’re an entertaining writer and fine teacher-explainer, Daniel. Even without looking at the picture, the text gave a good sense of what was going on—and then the picture secured it all in “I *get* it!” memory.
Also, I’ll be a little more confident if my mower acts up–for which I thank you again. 🙂
You’re welcome and thank you kindly! I was kind of channelling one of my heroes (whom I was highly fortunate to meet on several occasions).
Daniel, I’ve found all of your posts to be great reads, and this one is no different. I’ve learned a lot about mowers — details I never knew to even wonder about. Thanks.
And this line:
“my tastes are so far off the bell curve it’s a long-distance call from here”
…is one of the best commentaries I’ve ever read. I can relate to that viewpoint in many ways.
I’m curious, too… is the house in the picture located in Wyncote? Sure seems familiar to me.
Uh…yeah, that’s 1117 Arboretum Rd, Wyncote; what gave its location away? We moved away to Denver when I was four.
Thanks for the compliments, and glad you liked this piece! It’s been in the works for awhile.
I grew up right near there… I instantly recognized the neighborhood.
Wow, really? Small world! What timeframe?
My folks moved there in 1976, and lived there until 2009. I’ve been up and down Arboretum Rd. many times.
Incidentally, that’s the neighborhood where the local high school drivers’ ed instructors would take first-time drivers who’d never driven on real streets before.
Habbout that. My folks moved there in 1970.
For me, there have always been two kinds of small lawn mowers: Lawn Boy, which is what my father always bought, in a small enough size to ensure that I’d spend the entire Friday afternoon mowing the lawn (and therefore having no time whatsoever to spend the afternoon hanging out with the high school crowd); and Honda’s which is what I currently use. Primarily because I’ve worked for he local Honda dealer for the past fourteen years. Not just Honda motorcycles, we’re what I call a Honda Red dealership, motorcycles, ATV’s, personal watercraft while they made them, lawn mowers, trimmers, generators. And at one time we also covered the outboard motors. There was great rejoicing when we dropped them.
I like the quality, and the five years I spent in parts means that I can figure out just about any and every sub-variant of Honda motors that powers them.
Ditto on the Lawn Boy. When I last had a lawn to mow, Lawn Boys were still 2 stroke engines. Natural landscaping is the rage now and it certainly requires less work. However Lawn Boy 2 stroke fumes and fresh mowed grass will always be the smell of summer to me. It just seems right.
When I was young, I vaguely remember the “crazy neighbor” at my grandfather’s vacation home having a hover mower. This would have been around 1988-90. Yes, a hover mower. I imagine the blade must have doubled as a fan and it would have had some kind of skirt. No wheels. You’d think they would be everywhere now if it worked worth a damn but I swear I remember him mowing the yard with it.
Am I crazy or does someone know what I’m talking about?
You’re not crazy. It was called the Flymo, and in fact still is. I’ve not used one, but I’m suspicious of the concept on its face. Enormous money and effort has been put into optimising rotary mower design to vacuum-lift the grass blades up so they can be cut uniformly and the clippings efficiently dealt with. Making a mower hover calls for blowing air downward, which is going to flatten down the grass. Seems like the opposite of what’s wanted.
I remember one neighbor having a hover mower, I don’t remember the brand name, but their lawn always had a real smooth look, no wheel tracks as telltales as to which direction they mowed.
My childhood next door neighbors were a childless two income couple (a rarity in 60s suburbia). They used to spend their entire weekend using a power reel type mower to mow first in one direction, then mow a second time at a right angle to the first cut. It gave their lawn an interesting checkerboard look. They were the neighborhood “GET OFF MY LAWN” people.
Thank you! For years I’ve occasionally wondered about that UFO from my childhood. I have no knowledge how well it performed but they had it for at least a few years.
I’ve never actually seen one, but I’ve encountered the name Flymo in several British novels, so I assumed they were common enough there that the name became generic for lawnmower, like Kleenex for paper tissues. BTW, I grew up in a reel push mower world, and financed my Road & Track addiction by dragging it around the ‘hood and mowing lawns for $1.50. I’ve only owned two power mowers in my life, an MTD from the late’80’s with a B&S, which I passed on to my Mom and reverted to a more modern push reel in the 2000’s when I decided that our kids were old enough to mow the lawn, but not old enough to use a gas mower. She got tired of starting it and bought a plug-in electric Black and Decker, which I inherited when she passed away, and now occasionally use at a rental. Our current house has no lawn. But we have a pool … pool maintenance makes lawn maintenance seem easy, but the equipment is very dull, though there seems to be some cult following of programmable variable speed pumps and salt water systems. But maybe those guys don’t care about old cars …
When I was a young kid I was way more interested in power lines, air conditioners, furnaces, fans, vacuum cleaners and large appliances (I was interested in computers, too, but that’s a more “normal” interest). I didn’t play with anything but Lego sets, broken gadgets that I would take apart or fix, Knex toys and our family PC.
I was 11 when my grandpa bought a Grasshopper zero-turn radius mower from an auction. I was fascinated. It was the only mower that caught my attention, simply because it lacked a steering wheel. I was wowed whenever he made a turn, it just whipped around. He still has it, these are very durable riding mowers. I think it has a Kohler gas engine. Some of them use a diesel engine, believe it or not.
Some years prior to my thing for mower engines, I had a thing for vacuum cleaners, to the extent that for my fifth birthday I requested and got my folks’ spare vacuum and a cake shaped like it.
hehehehehehehehehehehehehehe
Daniel:
Great read! Thanks!
I worked in the neighborhood LM shop in the late ’60s-early 70’s. All you have described is quite familiar and brings back many memories. I agree that the wind-up starter is the invention of the devil, as my granny would say.
I thought of Bricks & Scrapiron (the correct name) as the General Motors of small engs. with Tec and Clinton as Ford and Chryco. Not sure which was Ford or Chryco. I liked Tecumseh’s pressure oiling, but I also remember not too fondly the non-adjustable “carburetor” as well. I always had a soft spot for Clinton, don’t remember why now. My favorite vertical shaft engine was the Bricks model 80700, which had a real float carb with both idle and main needle valves! (If I’m remembering correctly)
I still use a Sensation rotary that my father bought some time around 1970. These were quite common here back then. It bags grass quite well (yes I’m politically incorrect)
Strangest thing I remember coming into the shop was an old vertical Bricks that the owner had put linseed oil in the crankcase. When it got hot it hardened and smelled really awful.
An acquaintance of mine whose career involved selling very large dynamometers to automakers used to say that Chrysler do a lousy job of building a good design, Ford do a good job of building a lousy design, and GM do a mediocre job of building a mediocre design. I’m not sure that’s smack on target for Briggs/Tecumseh/Clinton, but it’s probably not too far off.
I like that summation of the Big Three; I’ve come to the same conclusion. Ford built fairly high-quality but underwhelming cars, Chrysler loosely slapped together some fantastic engineering, and GM was somewhere in the middle, although many of their engineering attempts arguably paralleled Chrysler’s.
Owning examples from each, I can plainly say that they all made some head-scratching decisions sometimes.
I grew up in various Connecticut towns and at one point my parents took a break from living in ‘walkable town center’ areas and we moved to a place with a huge lawn. Dad found a used Briggs and Stratton triple blade greens mower, then created a come-a-long seat for 12 year old me to ride behind it. What a fun experience. The rest of my mowing life has been an endless battle between my mom’s desire for environmental purity (motorless reel mowers and electrics) and dad’s irritation at same which would always result in his hunting down something at a tag sale.
No mowing in Manhattan but this article made me want to call in sick, drive up to Connecticut, and offer to mow the lawn, a chore I always found soothing and therapeutic.
I take a very un-CC approach when it comes to yard equipment. I am much more tolerant of a non start of my old cars than a non start of a lawnmower or hedge trimmer. My current ride is a two year old Honda rear bagger. The Achilles heel of these units is the automatic choke that has a tendency to stick open. Mine got so bad that I needed to use starting fluid to start the mower when cold and backfiring on warm starts. I finally removed the carb, cleaned and lubed the linkage. Now it starts and runs great.
This is the third Honda I have owned. Lost #1 in a divorce, (along with the house). Gave #2 to my Daughter, still on the job. I have noticed declining build quality in successive models, but still a fine piece of equipment
I’m with you. When I get the time, and agreeable weather to mow the lawn then that is what I want to do. I do the preventive maintenence over the winter months to minimize breakdowns.
One neighbor had a Flymo when I was a kid…don’t remember much about it except that it didn’t leave tire tracks. The mower’s owner was a Mr. Zimmer, and his father had been a bigshot with Cincinnati Gas & Electric, even had a power plant named after the senior Mr. Zimmer…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Zimmer_Power_Station
The senior Mr. Zimmer lived on the next street, in a normal-looking 1960s 2 story colonial, but it allegedly was framed with steel posts and beams instead of wood.
A bit late to this great read. I guess I have been a bit more lax about my power equipment than some here. My method has been to never buy a new mower. The $75 reconditioned Lawn Boy got me started, and it ran great with a little occasional fiddling.
Then I got a Toro from my mother after she retired from grass cutting. It did the job, but I neither loved nor hated it, until it started making bad internal engine sounds. I didn’t pay attention to what powered it (B&S, probably) but I learned that it lacked an oil pump, not a good idea on my hilly back yard.
My current Toro Recycler (bought used about 15 years ago) has provided zero trouble. I too have retired from grass cutting, but can’t make myself sell it yet.
I did dig into a Sears/Tecumseh horizontal shaft engine that my father pirated from a reel mower to power a go-kart about 1972. One day it wouldn’t start, and I went to the extent of checking a manual out of the library to try and fix it. I gave up and let my friend’s very mechanically inclined dad try, but he couldn’t get it to go either. I gave up.
Some of my best memories of my early teenage years involve Tecumseh engines. My dad brought home a worthless paint sprayer with a 3.5 hp Teke engine, and it became my life’s mission to get that thing to run, which I eventually did. It had a crankshaft with a gear at the output end, which drove a reduction gear to the belt on the paint sprayer.
At about the same time, I bought a used minibike with a 2 hp Briggs engine and no centrifugal clutch. You pushed it until it started then jumped on. How do you think that worked out?
I got this genius idea (for an 8th grader) to put the Teke engine on the minibike, but what to do about the crankshaft? I solved this by buying a used one from a lawnmower shop, and some new piston rings, and set about overhauling the engine. Much to my delight and surprise, it started and ran flawlessly. Add to that a swap meet sourced centrifugal clutch, and I was in business!
I guess my point here is that all of that time spent working on those little engines was excellent training for future automotive projects. Whatever of the value of that old paint sprayer, my parents got it back times 1000 or more as I grew up and repaired their cars.
It was a great education that is still paying dividends.
I’ve got a Poulan Pro bought on Amazon last year. Honestly the biggest criteria I had was to be able to get the large rear wheels because of my uneven yard. Being in the desert southwest all I really use it for is to keep the weeds knocked down. I know it was made in some Chinese factory and simply sticker-ed to be a Poulan but it has served me well.
And yes it has a Briggs and Stratton Engine.
Anyone remember Jacobson mowers? We had one in the early 1960s 2cycle. I recall it being very difficult to start even after several trips to the repair shop. I believe the exhaust exited underneath the deck, as a result it was relatively quiet. At the time I was flying model airplanes that used fuel containing nitromethane. For a fun experiment I tried some in the mower. Perked it right up!
I rem. my Brother had a cheap 20″ push mower in the 70s
It had a Pincor ? Pincore ? 3.0 engine. Have not seen or heard that name for many years.
Several years ago at a garage sale I bought a Snapper combo unit, a Snow Blower, Lawn Edger and Lawn Mower, the 3.5 engine was mounted on what was called a Power Head with the throttle control cable on the handle.. It could be moved onto any one of the three units in minutes by unscrewing a big plastic handle and then slipping the Power Head on and attaching the drive belt. Was really unique and I thought it was well worth the $25. that I paid for the whole shebang, overall it was in very good cond. and ran well………would prob. be a collectors item now ?
Pincor is correct. They were a lesser-known, smaller maker of small engines, now long defunct.
When my Dad bought his Snapper in the early 70’s they were the cats pajamas
top drawer I don’t see too many anymore. And then last summer they are on
display at WAL MART just think you can come out with a china Schwinn
and a Snapper I didn’t have the heart to see if they are made in China
The day they sell a Toro there is the day I cut my throat
Yeah, ugh. See here
Toughest most durable push mower I ever had looked like this(but without the self propel)…a Yazoo sans bag and a pull-start Clinton motor. I do not remember the horsepower rating. However, if you wanted to bag your grass…probably the old Snapper was the best push mower. I really liked the bag design on those old snappers.
I did my first carb rebuild when I was 10 on my dad’s Clinton engined mower (no recoil starter, just a metal cup with a notch that you wrap a rope around). I discovered the reason for the no-start that prompted the operation as there was no fuel in the bowl, or in the tank! I don’t miss these infernal things on cars, but seem to be plagued with them on mowers, whipper snippers, etc. still. In high school I had a small lawn mowing circuit that kept my wallet more or less supplied. One of my customers had a 1930’s era REO (Ransom E. Olds) reel mower that was like a piece of working sculpture. This was getting a bit balky by the end of the 1960’s and so I offered to refurbish it for him. This made modern mowers look very crude in comparison. It had the quietest muffler of any other small engine I have encountered, by a huge margin. Many custom cast parts were used. Of course there were no parts available, so I had to make all the gaskets. By this time my dad had bought an early 1960’s Toro with a Tecumseh engine. I recall this was a very expensive unit with magnesium deck, scimitar type blade with anti-scalp disc. The carb had a drain on the float bowl. lots of features. This lasted for something like 25 years.
Now I have an electric rotary that my wife bought when I was travelling on business because she can’t start a gas mower. I don’t bag the grass. I use the side discharge for the first cut then block the outlet and mulch for the second cut (right angles to the first). A proper job requires two cuts, especially if it is heavy/long. Mulching is a lot less work than collecting the clippings, then trying to dispose of them. Then there is that heavy bag….
Oh the lawn mower. I’m afraid for me this means a part of my life I hated as a child – having to mow the lawn was not something I looked for. “Ours” was actually my grandfather’s and every time I borrowed it I had to go through his stern warnings of keeping it clean and using it correctly (it was more like a lecture really). It was a primitive Israeli built thing with the proverbial B & S engine and could be a bear to start. It had no collector so that one had to rake the cuttings laboriously once the mowing was done, clean lawn mower and return it to grandpa for inspection and another lecture. At 11, I had far more important things to do with my time…
Pulled an early 70’s Lawn-Boy out from under my late grandmother’s house in 1987 & kept in my garage for years. In the late 90’s I needed a new mower & took a look at the Lawn Boy, it hadn’t been started by me since I brought it home and I had no clue the last time it was run as there was a newer Lawn Boy another relative took. WTH, I tightened the two fasteners that held the carb to the block (they were loose) filled the tank w/32:1 premix, and it started on the first or second pull! Lawn Boy 2 strokes rule! (& kill mosquitoes until the motors warm up…)
Yes.
I am a Lawn boy lover and currently own three.
All 2 cycle with the newest being a 1990 or so model.
The only Lawn boy quirk I have found is that they have a tendency to go thru ignition coils. Luckily there are Chinese knock off coils readily available from E-bay for cheap.
Hi i could use some help i bought an sears 20″ cut model # 131.91072
Engine / power products / 2 stroke
#637-08 /4486119
I was told that’s it is probably an early 60′ s
Model , i am hoping someone can tell me ( acualy what year) it was manafactured in
And on this engine should their be an serial number on the engine ( the shroud ) any info would be gracefully appreciated…Mr.Stephen Witcher
The site you’ll want to join and ask questions on is SmokStak. That does appear to be a late ’50s or early ’60s mower. Power Products was the 2-cycle engine division of Tecumseh (Lauson was the 4-cycle). Look for the engine model number; it should be in the format 143.xxxxx.
Wow, what a great story. I didn’t think there were any other kids who loved Tecumseh engines and mowers in general like I did in the 60’s and 70’s! Still love ‘em and work on ‘em whenever I can. I too regret tossing out my repair manuals and boxes of spare parts, heck I even left a bunch of vintage Toro Whirlwind and Craftsman magnesium deck mowers at the curb during a move in the 80’s (what was I thinking?).
Found a number of the wind-up impulse starter Whirlwind mowers over the years, I thought they were great so I’d always pick them up when I found them. The LAV engines were so dang easy to start that I never had to crank them up a second time, and I really liked how lightweight and maneuverable the mowers were.
When I was a kid I remember begging my dad to buy a Toro mower when our cheap old hardware store mower from the 50’s died (it was an MTD Lawn-Flite with a Briggs 6100 series engine). But dad was a frugal man and couldn’t resist a low price, so one night he came back from Two Guys department store with a cheap “Lawn Lion” mower that was on sale. I was disappointed but it did the job I guess. Eventually the stamped steel deck developed a crack and the blade started striking the deck when I would push down on the handles so out it went. By that time I found a free mower at the curb, rebuilt the engine in shop class and that’s the mower we used for years after. I still love cutting the grass, just the 1/2 acre I have is enough.
5.2021 ~
I just found this nice old thread, loved reading it with all the history, details and stories .
Indeed you described a sprag clutch well, many have rollers with tiny coil springs instead of balls in them for smoother operation and ablity to handle far more load, like in Bendix starter drives .
In my Ghetto neighborhood are more than a few mini bikes powered by elderly upright B & S engines, the kids of course, gut the mufflers just as I did in 1964….
I went to the auction of Oliphant Brothers in the San Fernando Valley in the 1990’s , they had at least an acre of old machines out back and serious N.O.S. parts department dating back to WWII .
It’s a shame public schools no longer have tradesman classes, not everyone will be wearing a suit and tie for their life’s work .
-Nate
I was disappointed to find out that the subject mower is not one of those ‘wind-up’ starter mowers contemporary to it.
Watching my Dad repeatedly flip open that winder handle, wind it, shut it, attempt to stsrt and stall several times before catching, I learned a whole new language, lol!
“F-ck!”… “Sonovab____ch!” lol!
The crank start mowers. My folks bought on in the early 60s on a sit down mower. It actually lasted a while, into the late 60s, but while it never had a problem with the crank part, like most mowers it was hard to start. And you couldn’t give it an extra hard pull to spin it a little faster, it just did what it did. You cranked it and pushed the button. Again, and again, and again.
B and S. Many seem to love them, not me. Had a number, some from my childhood, some bought used, some bought new, but they were never better than marginal on power and always hard to start. Think I had a Murray with a MTD engine too, or was it the other way around. But the same, always hard to start. My Dad bought a Lawn Boy I think it was. High end, 6 speed self propelled, he liked to spend money. After he passed I inherited it. And that thing was near impossible to get started. Great once it did, but getting it started was a nightmare.
Finally around ’05 I bought something better than entry level, a Craftsman with a Honda engine. Now keep in mind, I’m not a fan of Honda cars, but lawn mower engines, yesssss! It did get cranky for a while, it would start, but once it warmed up wanted to die. Turned out to be a bad spark plug, NGK too. Still starts on the first pull most of the time. I’m sure the self propelled mechanism will die before the engine does.
Remarkably thorough article, thank you Daniel. I still own a Lawnboy model 5243, bought by my dad in the Spring of 1975. Wonderfully reliable, the only part that consistently needed premature replacement, was the primer bulb.
From the lead photo, your dad resembled early 80s rock icon, Donnie Iris.
You’re welcome and thanks, Daniel. I hadn’t heard of Donnie Iris, but I do see the resemblance, now you mention it—especially around the glasses.
I love cheesy, low-budget pre-MTV music videos…
If I recall, this particular article was my gateway experience to CC when I first stumbled upon it somehow back in 2016. I figured that any site that devoted 5 plus pages to a cleverly-written history of lawnmowers and their starting mechanisms would have to be something that would be of long-term interest to me.
I was correct.
Thanks Daniel for an excellent article. One of my earliest lawn-mowing recollections is of being allowed to wind up the starter on one of my uncle’s many (many…he was tasked with mowing several acres of country/farm lawn at my grandmother’s/his house, and the numerous rocks, logs, old car parts, etc. constantly borked his mowers, so he had many) mowers. I was too young to mow, but apparently not too young to launch the perhaps fatal starting mechanism. Good times…
Well! I’m glad to have roped ya in, then!
I have only vague memories of the lawn mowers my family had when I was growing up, since I only did about 10% of the mowing. I remember two Toros and I think a Craftsman, although my dad may have just used Craftsman blades on the Toro and I’m remembering those blades dangling from a hook on the basement wall rather than the mower itself. At least once when our mower was broken we borrowed a Lawn-Boy from a neighbor or friend, which became my introduction to 2-stroke engines. Really, you have to put oil in with the gas? The last mower that we had there, replacing the second Toro, was a Honda. I found this one a bit cumbersome to use, as I had learned I could temporarily keep the self-propelled mower (which didn’t have a kill switch back then that you had to squeeze) from moving forward by pushing down on the handlebar, causing the front wheels to raise off the ground and spin in the air. Then I could turn the corner or whatever, let the front wheels down, and continue. But the Honda was rear wheel drive so that technique didn’t work. I found it ironic that the same company that bragged about only making FWD cars in their advertising made RWD lawn mowers.
From the early ’90s to 2014 I lived in various places that didn’t require my mowing a lawn before moving into the house I’m in now and needed to resume mowing. I bought an EGO self-propelled battery electric model, the Tesla of lawn mowers. Good for the environment since gasoline mowers don’t have anything like the emissions controls modern cars do, but I wasn’t even thinking about that aspect when I bought it. Rather, I was tired of how obnoxiously LOUD gas mowers are. Having a quiet mower (which sounds like a 20″ box fan when running, which is sorta what it is) means I can mow late at night (using the mower’s bright LED headlamps) rather than the sweltering DC area daytime summer heat and humidity without the neighbors complaining. Also, plugging in a battery is way easier than going out to fill a gas can. It starts at the push of a button. There’s no smelly exhaust. I have two batteries, one that lasts for an hour of mowing and a smaller lighter one that lasts about half that time. They charge just as quickly as they’re depleted, so with two batteries I effectively have infinite range (not that I need it; the large battery alone is usually enough for my suburban lawn). The same batteries work with my leaf blower and trimmer. To save space in the shed, the mower can be folded and stored on its side; it’s not like anything’s going to drip out. No need to ever change the oil or spark plugs; just sharpen the blade occasionally. It’s has a 21″w blade, easy height adjustment, and well-designed controls. Downsides? None. Despite this, it seems most new mowers in this price range still use an ICE. All I can think when I see them is “guys, you’re doing it wrong…”.
Back in the sixties my aunt had a Reo reel mower that was at least ten years old. It had a non-recoil starter that used a plain rope with a wooden handle that you wound around the housing. Self propelled and a good thing as the beast must have weighed 200 pounds. Didn’t handle tall grass well, but gave a good cut if you mowed frequently. Reel mowers fell out of favor in the fifties it seems. They were quite expensive and cheaper rotaries took over the market.
Still own my dad’s Toro Guardian 21″ FWD (1968 or so?) with the great alloy deck. It is used now as a backup for our 1995 Noma 40″ tractor, so where the big one cannot go the Toro will fit on our one acre of landscaped yard.
Believe it or not, the Tecumseh 150 cc engine has never been opened yet and will start on the first or second pull in spring! Though it has become hard to find parts ( original wheels and blades) I am not willing to retire it for a modern chinese plastic crap.
Joe
That’ll be a just-over-148cc engine, but who’s counting? 🙂
I grew up mowing with a Honda Toro (Stepdad is a retired engineer and valued good design) self propelled mower. Circa 1987 I believe. That mower was unstoppable and indestructible. To show off to my friends I would stand on the mower at the bottom of our hill and ride it all the way up while also cutting and bagging the grass. Fast forward 30 years and I just bought battery electric self propelled mower. For my small city lot it’s perfect and a total revelation. So much so that I also purchased a battery powered line trimmer and blower. I do appreciate and had tons of fun growing up with small gas engines but man, battery electric power is just so awesome. Far quieter, no starting required, l-ion battery density and best of all no breathing and smelling like exhaust.
Mmmmm…something might be a leetle off-plumb about your recall; AFAIK Toro weren’t using Honda engines on their walk-behind mowers. Around 1987 they were using Tecumseh engines more or less exclusively until those Suzuki-built/Toro-branded “GTS” (Guaranteed To Start) engines they began offering in or around ’90.
But yeah, you’re absolutely right: despite all the fun I had with gasoline engines as a kid, today’s electric outdoor power equipment is just trouncingly superior.
Your dad’s mower looks very similar to my dad’s mower. Black deck, white housing. Right down to that toothy grin in the front. I started mowing when I was nine, after dad moved out and my parents careening to a divorce in 1969. Regular gas in a steel can. Pull and a throttle lever–that’s it. Craftsman. Mom was absolutely certain I was going to get something amputated pushing it. Dad got it in Pensacola before we moved back to Atlanta. I think I liked mowing the first time I did it because I felt ‘grown up’. (Little did I know that adulting would suck.) It disappeared after 1973 when mom remarried and we moved to a bigger house with a 1/2 acre sloped backyard I was tasked to mow. Mom’s new husband got a tan colored mower with FWD (two modes: on and off). I think that was a Craftsman. We just changed the oil at the beginning of the season. It was this backyard that I discovered a ground yellow jacket nest and later poured a 1/2 gallon of gas down the hole in the dark.
Seems now like a millennium ago. I still use a push mower at both houses, the big one has FWD, but with each new season, that yard is getting bigger or I’m getting smaller. I have to admit I really like the simplicity of a B&S motor and setup.