Back in 2011, I did a CC on my then-current lawnmower, a 1960s Montgomery Ward with a B&S 3hp engine. I mow a lot of lawns, most of my rentals. Until last year, I also had a 38″ riding mower, so the push mowers were used for small areas and such. The riding mower, a cheap low-end MTD, just sort of fell apart from 20 years of abuse. So last summer and this, I’m back to pushing, which is actually very good exercise, and I rather enjoy it, more or less.
But the ’80s vintage B&S on the Montgomery Ward just wore out, and had very little compression. But I had this fine 1960s Sears, also with a later B&S 3 horse, waiting in reserve. And it’s now finished its second season working solo.
There’s a very good reason I prefer these old vintage mowers: they have a side discharge. Our mowing season here in Western Oregon is fairly short but very intense, meaning the grass grows like crazy from about mid-April until mid-June, when the rains stop for the whole summer and it goes dormant. No mowing for the rest of the year, unless we get early fall rains in September, like we did this year. It starts growing again and needs maybe one or two more mowings, like this one in September.
The key point is that I let the grass get pretty long, and these side discharge mowers rip through it. And I never bag; the clippings are of course what feeds the lawn (perish the thought of putting down fertilizer). A mulching mower really struggles with grass this tall and lush.
Here’s a picture of that Montgomery Ward mower back in its prime. I found the mower sitting at a curb, with a “Free” sign. The engine was essentially seized and had zero oil in it. I put oil in it, and just kept pulling on the starter rope, and it got looser and looser. Put gas in it and it fired up. I used it for some 7-8 years, but eventually its earlier abuse caught up with it. I still have it in case I happen to run into another engine with the right length shaft. Not too likely.
And here’s the current Sears, the picture also taken back then. I put that motor on it; it came off some 1980s or so mower with a nasty steel deck. It was in rude health, but I have to say, after two years of ripping through a lot of tall grass, it’s starting to show it now, as in a pretty good puff of smoke on start-up. Hmm. If only I could buy an electric mower with a side discharge and really stout batteries. Maybe make my own?
I still have this vintage Lawn Boy I picked up for $15 ten years ago, but somewhat oddly, I’ve never used it much. I’m not a fan of the set back front wheel on one side. I’m sure it’s fine on a nice smooth lawn, but some of mine are anything but that. But it does start up every couple of years, just to keep it a bit exercised.
Ironically, my youngest mower, a cheap Murray or MTD from 1994, hasn’t been used in years. I bought it new after we moved here, because I gave our similar but not high wheel mower to some friends that really needed one and were in a financial pinch. But I don’t like the high wheel thing; it’s heavy and the supports for the rear wheel are not as sturdy as they should be.
But given that my younger son helps me mow over at the rentals, I figured it made sense to pull it out from the very back of the shed and get it running. But I couldn’t get the carb to prime, as the primer bulb was shot. And even after starting it with starter fluid, it wouldn’t keep running.
So since I needed a primer bulb anyway, I went to Amazon, and found a kit that included everything and more, for a mere $16.99. What a deal. Of course it’s all from China, but the price was more than right.
And it started right up, and runs like a top. So now I have three running mowers again.
Here’s how the riding mower looked about ten years ago. I tossed the hood early on, as it needed a steady diet of the carb lower half, a crappy plastic thing that plugged up way too often. I really abused this thing; in addition to all my rentals, I also owned a two acre lot for a couple of years. Yes, two acres. Rough, stumps, rocks, etc. And then I still owned another empty lot, which was a real mess. How many blades I bent from hitting big rocks and pipes and stumps. I’m actually impressed at how long it lasted, and I could have fixed the slipping drive belt, but I was kind of sick of it. I got my $599 worth out of it, and then some.
My plan had been to get away from mowing tenants’ lawns, but it’s been harder than I expected. Most are grad students and such, and they don’t have mowers, and…I do. I have two or three I’ve weaned, but the rest are a work in progress.
In any case, I’d like to move into the electric world. As much sentimental attachment I have for old gas engines, fixing and servicing them regularly gets old, as does the sound. But I’d need to find one with a side discharge and be powerful enough to rip through a bunch of lawns behind my quite rapid pace.
My 12 year old Honda is not a bagger, doesn’t go on its own but has a plastic chute that you attach to make it a side discharger. It’s all (well, mostly) made in USA and probably the last gas-powered mower I’ll buy.
Because it is so basic, it sat at the Honda cycle/power equipment store for 8 years before I bought it, so I was able to get a pretty good deal and a full warranty.
My EGo Power+ electric mower has a similar arrangement – rear bagging, side discharge (but no bag), or mulch. The side discharge chute actually isn’t included in the box when you buy the mower, but they’ll send you one free if you request it. Works great btw, and they make both self-propelled and push versions.
Thanks for posting this. I enjoyed the article a lot. I mowed my family’s yard as a kid – I got $10.00/week in 1969-71 for doing all the yard work. We have a fairly large lot that is mostly lawn, so it took me over an hour once a week to mow the lawn. I used one of those old reel-type power mowers. The grass catcher was very small, so I’d have to stop after about three passes back and forth and empty the grass. We’d keep the lawn watered, so the mowing would go on all summer; at least once a week. Four years ago I inherited the old family home so we retired early and moved back home to Seattle and into my old house. The first thing I bought was a new lawn mower. It still takes me an hour to mow the lawn even though I have a much larger grass bin and don’t have to empty as often. I guess that’s because I’m a bit slower at it than I was 50 years ago.
Had I only known – I could have shipped you my very early 90s vintage Toro – it was a mulcher but could be set up as a side discharge. Its problem was that after a few years of non-use an oil seal quit doing its job so that one mowing usually required topping off the oil in the middle of the job. I researched that a seal kit was inexpensive but decided to not go there as I had gotten plenty of use out of it (and had bought it used to start with).
I replaced it with my first-ever brand new mower – a Snapper rider of the classic design that is still being made. Mine has a mulching blade on it, but it will also do a side discharge.
I am with you on the anti-bagging platform. My BIL is a farmer and always shakes his head at city people who will spend lots of money on fertilizer then throw most of it away in the first few mowings when they bag the fertilizer-rich clippings instead of letting them keep doing their job of feeding the lawn.
Those old lawn mowers pollute horribly. I do not know how the newer ones compare, but I remember a number of years ago, that it was found that mowing the average yard was equivalent in polluting to driving 70 miles.
Our landlord reduces our $1100 monthly rent by $100 if we perform lawn maintenance. He supplied us with a vintage Lawn Boy, like yours, and a weed whacker. And, he drops off 2 cycle fuel, whenever required.
I can’t find a choke on the Lawn Boy, so I have to pour gas on the air filter to start it.
Something about reviving old mowers and getting the best out of what you bought new. My current Honda is about 10 years old. It was a garage sale purchase from a neighbor who put his last one on the curb back then. I nabbed the old one back then, fixed it, used it for those 10 years and sold to buy his other one!
Here’s a shot of our current curb find, repaired and in use.it’s a 1978 Sensation that my son found.
Starts on the first pull!
I always loved Briggs & Stratton engines. They take a lot of neglect and abuse.
If you perform annual maintenance on them every 5-10 years or so, they keep running.
I just had to put out to pasture my 2003 brings and Stratton pulon pro self propelled mower
Not because of engine issues but because the deck rusted out so badly the engine was about to fall out
Shame because it would start on the first pull of the cord
I too have loved B&S small gas engines. However, from all I have read B & S no longer makes them in the US of A anymore.
I ordered a small B&S replacement engine, not a “will fit”, for a tiller. When I opened the box I saw “Made In China” written all over the thing.
After 1 season of seldom use it smokes like a WWI battleship under full steam.
Save yourself some $$ and go to Harbor Freight.
They certainly do mine went to the dump when I moved the steel deck of the mower had several patches migged in to keep clippings undedrneath and the Briggs ate 3 electric drills over the years the recoil starter shat itself many years ago and I simply welded a deep reach socket to the nut atop the mainshaft and ground a bolt head 3/8 square a quick spin with the drill and away it would go an oil refill with whatever waste oil I had from car oil changes each mowing had it imitating a two stroke for most of its life compression was only a suggestion but the Briggs and Stratton just kept going,
My house as a kid in the late 60s and 70s had a pretty good hill, so my dad bought a very small (18″?) mower. Not self propelled, no bagger. (He was also a frugal son of a Scottish immigrant.)
After a few years he ran it dry of oil and it seized. He let it cool, turned it over, and whacked the blade with a hammer, protected by a 2×4. It freed up and ran for many more years – not even any smoke.
In my mid-teens it was surging and sometimes stalling. I knew just enough to guess that it was the carburetor but had no idea how finicky carbs could be, so (with no manual and no real knowledge of how a carb worked) I just took it apart, cleaned the hemlock needles out of it, and reassembled it, and it ran like new. Not sure if it was luck or the simplicity of the B&S, but I don’t think I would try that now!
Ive had a knack for finding very cheap mowers just when I needed them. About 5 years ago my luck ran out so I bought a new one. A Husqvarna 7021p with a Honda engine. It bags, mulches or discharges out the side. The big box store had it for $299 in a box. The local equipment dealer had it for the same price assembled, gas tank full, fine tuned and warranty paperwork registered online. I bought it from him. It starts on the first pull 97% of the time, 2ND pull the other 3%. It pushes very easy due to the wheel bearings and I really like it. The manual on auto off choke can be a bit sticky so I just off the choke manually. It’s been great.
That 2 cycle Lawn Boy looks to be in good shape. In twenty years of home ownership I have never bought a new mower. I’ve had two of those Lawn Boys. The first I used for about four years until a newer free Lawn Boy showed up. I have found the aluminum decks to be indestructible, and the engines very low maintenance.
Same here. 24 years and never a new mower. Picked up quite a few neighbors’ units for free when professional landscapers hit. Back in the 70’s when I first started mowing as a kid those Lawnboys were the ones to have. Reel mowers are a little scary. A few neighbors growing up had them.
I have a high-wheel mower like that, of the same vintage, which simply stopped running in the middle of a job a couple of years ago. It wasn’t out of oil and there was no clanking, so I guessed it was the carb, but I really know nothing about small engines and hesitated to spend money on something that old, which I didn’t particularly like anyway.
Looking at replacements, the cheapest electric was about twice as much as the very bottom of the line Bolens from Lowes, and having only an 18 inch blade means the Bolens will fit into many more tight spots, which is what I need, than larger mowers.
So while I regret not having an electric in many ways, the Bolens hasn’t been too bad. It has an ohv B&S engine but there is no speed control at all, and just as strangely it hasn’t bothered me. It clearly uses less gas than the old flathead. It isn’t built for anything but light duty but is holding up so far. If it quits it might make more sense to try to fix the old one, now that I know it’s possible.
I don’t mind side discharge vs bagger/mulch but I want to buy one that’s NOT self-propelled! I do not need that added weight/complexity/binding when I back up!
Our lawn season is probably similar to the Willamette Valley, just a bit more extended and flattened curve, as it were. Fortunately we haven’t had a lawn for 10 years, and before that we downsized the lawn so that it was manageable (barely) with an un-powered reel mower that became our kids’ primary chore starting at about age 8 or 10. And we had willing tenants in our two rentals who used my string trimmer (yes!) and rear discharge mower on the very small and quite large lawns, respectively. Both electric, both corded, both Black and Decker and very reliable over 20-25 years of use. But when we decided to sell our larger rental at the peak of growing season, I had to keep up the appearances and yes, that rear discharge does clog so easily. And no bagging for me, for the same reasons as everyone else cites.
If we had kept that house I would have got a 40+ volt cordless mower. I have pretty much stopped using ICE in my yard and will probably donate my 61cc Husqvarna chainsaw to a local trailbuilding organization. And, my only experience with a flathead B&S mower years ago was not good, no amount of spark plug cleaning and carb fiddling would get it to run well, from new, and it became a free curb takeaway when the kids were old enough to use the push reel mower.
I usually pick up two mowers/year from the alleys, most often in the spring after their owners couldn’t get them started. R&Ring the carb bowl and cleaning out the carb innards with carb cleaner spray usually gets them going although ethanol gas can turn plastic float needle seats into oatmeal so often they have to be replaced. From there the mowers go on Craig’s List. In the past few of years I’ve found two mowers with Honda engines, one an OHV and one an OHC; both of those needed drive cables.
My own mower is a side discharge RWD with a flat head Tecumseh engine and a narrow aluminum deck. Driven wheels on a mower I’ve found makes it easier to mow small, tight city lawns like I have, in that you can position the mower in tighter spots next to fences, etc., standing to the side of the mower and powering out.
A neighbor asked me to fix her Li-ion mower and I was impressed with its extremely light weight. I am seeing more battery electric mowers in the alley, I think because it’s less expensive to buy a new electric mower than to replace a failed battery pack on an old one.
I bought a new Craftsman mower with Tecumseh engine and blade clutch in 1987 after I bought my current house…because of the blade clutch, had to drain the oil through the filler dipstick which caused oil to get into the combustion chamber (I know, should have siphoned it out) and caused it to smoke. Still, it lasted until 2014 or so, bought another Craftsman, but clearly not up to the standard of the ’87, a lot lighter and only one speed (miss the throttle adjustment when I don’t want to blast clippings out side discharge). Miss the old Sears easy to buy parts (old mower had parts available for just about everything listed). I’ve already had to rebuild the carburetor this year when it wouldn’t start at beginning of season should have drained gas tank (which reminds me it is time to do that again for next season). My mower now has Briggs and Stratton engine, seems to work fine, and is pretty easy to work on, and easier to change the oil on…no blade clutch, so it shuts down when I remove my hand from the kill switch, which I don’t mind as much as I thought I would, after enjoying the blade clutch for many years (but didn’t find one with that option available, though didn’t have too much time to shop around).
I normally don’t bag my clippings except for first mowing of the season, when I cut it low. I had a friend that wanted my clippings for his silage if I didn’t use weed killers, as he had a horse and goat that would eat them, but he moved away so I just throw them out…feel a little bad about that, as well as my current leaves, but I have way too many to process into compost, since they all fall the same time of year, don’t have any good place to store them while they’re being processed (though some end up in the “wet” trash, it’s a small container which can’t hold very many.
Maybe it’s a safety thing? I have a really old Honda I got for free many years ago – one of the original pushrod engines – with metal instead of plastic covers on it. But it’s a bagger/mulcher. So I don’t use it. Don’t know if a side discharge kit is available for it.
I used a number of those old two-stroke Lawn Boys for many years, but they were tempermental and parts got expensive. No issues with the staggered wheels though.
Currently, I use a 35 year-old Murray tractor-mower that I’ve kept maintained, plus a similar age Murray side-discharge push mower that’s had countless replacement wheels and jury-rigs to keep it going.
I got my brother a used Honda-powered Huskvarna mower for our Virginia Beach home. It’s sort-of a side-discharge with a stupid spring-loaded plastic cover that completely blocks the discharge hole unless your prop it open with a chunk of wood. I think there’s supposed to be an optional chute to clip on there. But I’ve never seen one, and no one I’ve asked at any mower store knows anything about it. Meanwhile, my brother has been running it into the ground so it won’t matter. Second time he used it, he hit a tree-stump and bent the crank. The self-proppel quit and yard-debris shredded that plastic cover, so he zip-tied a scrap of sheet metal there to keep the biggest chunks away from his face!
Happy Motoring, Mark
Since we bought our house 16 years ago my main mower has been an 80s vintage Honda given to us by my father in law when he decided to use a contractor. It came set up for mulching or rear discharge bagging. When the grass was short I mulched, when longer I bagged it and composted the clippings. My only gripe is that I don’t like self-propelled mowers because of the weight and mechanical complexity. To Honda’s credit, the machine has performed flawlessly, though it got smokey as it aged. A new head assembly solved most of that. New rings would complete the job, but the transmission mechanism adds more time to that job than I am willing to invest.
Because I like that mower so much, and because people value them, I look on Craigslist for undervalued or broken ones to repair and resell, and have made a few dollars that way. One of the best finds was a metal chute that converts the rear discharge to side. No more bagging or dealing with the mess of mulching if the grass is long or wet. The metal chutes aren’t made any more, which makes the old mower even cooler.
Another great find, which is now my favorite mower, was a side discharge Honda from the 70s. It is a super simple mower, nice and light, no transmission, and a funky side-mounted pull cord. These are quite rare, and parts are difficult to find, so I take extra good care of it.
Many years ago (late 80s) I owned a small lawn care business. Back then my favorites were Lawn Boy two-strokes, commercial versions of the one shown by Paul. The staggered wheel design made them very maneuverable on small lawns. Moreover, the aluminum/magnesium decks were light and rust-free, and the two-stroke engines were very powerful for their weight. The Lawn Boys were much easier to lift on and off the truck or trailer than their four-stroke brethren. Because we weren’t so worried about emissions back then, they were the obvious choice for light weight and easy maintenance.
I’ve now got a Lawnboy. He’s thirteen and (usually) answers to the name Max. We semi-retired the Honda powered Troy-bilt we bought a decade ago as it’s running rich but slow, clearly it needs a good cleaning and tune.
We replaced it with an Electric Ryobi 40V 6Ah 20″ wide mower that manages to mow all of our 1/3rd acre that isn’t covered by the house or driveway and still has charge left if we don’t ignore the grass for too long. We alternate between bag and mulch on a whim but have experimented and found that if we let the grass get too long, the motor will compensate for it, i.e. increase the torque to chew through it at the expense of battery life.
Overall the mow quality is decent but not as good as the old mower with a good blade. The mower is MUCH lighter though and thus much more maneuverable making the whole thing much less of a chore. However I get the impression that the deck just isn’t as planted on the grass as the older heavier mower was, so there’s some variability in the mow length/quality. I doubt anyone walking by would notice though.
The best part though that outweighs it all is not having to get gas for it, refill the gas or deal with any fumes, tuning, adjustments etc. Just unplug the battery from the charger, drop it in the slot and return it to the charger at the end while smelling fresh cut grass the whole time.
Slowly the garage is turning all electric and all the better for it. A light duty cordless leaf blower and string trimmer joined the party last month too when I found a combo set on clearance at Amazon.
I have a Ryobi 40V chainsaw and a multi-attachment polesaw/string/disk trimmer. The Ryobi battery warranty is very good and you may need to use it. DAMHIK. one real advantage of the battery tools, especially for intermittent cutting devices like a saw or trimmer, is that they don’t idle. Silent when not actually cutting, thus safer, and of course not consuming power. So battery charge life is longer than you might expect.
Wow, it’s been nearly twenty years since I shopped for a push mower, so I’m not sure what is out there. My newest, a Troy-Bilt purchased around 2001 or 2002, has a Honda engine on it. It used to mow everything at our last two houses but we simply have more property here so the bulk is done in the rider mower. The Honda engined mower now takes care of the difficult stuff, such as the slope to the creek next to the house along with some other areas the rider cannot traverse.
It is a three-way unit, able to mulch, bag, or blow out the side. The bag was used once and is long lost; I simply stick a piece of wood under the flap on the side to overcome the mulcher and allow side discharge.
Like Jim Klein, my tools are going electric, but at a much slower pace. My chain saw is electric as is my pole saw and both weed eaters. However, the pole saw and weed eaters are corded, so I break out my gas powered generator to feed those. 🙂 Doing so reminds me of the meme I saw a while back of a Tesla recharging from a diesel powered generator.
I too recycle old mowers, a habit I got from my thrifty depression era 92 year old dad who mowed his own yard, not real big, until last year when he found out he needed a couple of stents.
I remember him buying our first power mower, from WT Grants(remember them?) in about 1970, he used it until about 1993, until we insisted on buying him a new one, an MTD, which he still used on occasion even though he had a Craftsman self propelled which he used until it rusted a big hole in the top of the deck. I took it home, patched it with some super duper duct tape, and now use it for trimming at home.
As for my home, I have about 2.5 acres to mow, and I use a 1991 Simplicity Landlord with hydrostatic drive and 50″ deck, it is on its 3rd engine an 18 hp B&S Vanguard, upgraded from a 16 hp. This tractor is starting to show some wear and tear, have replaced the front axle(cracked), and right front spindle(also cracked). I bought an identical mower that had beeen scrapped for parts for 100 bucks. it has come in handy.
I also have an old Sears side discharge push mower with a cast magnesium deck back in the barn that I’ll get running someday.
Mow or Die, lol.
I’d say there are a couple of reasons you can’t buy a walk behind side discharge mower any more. One is that rear baggers are much easier to deal with than the old back hanging on the side. The initial rear baggers often had the grass leave the deck in the traditional spot near the front but they often clogged on that long path. So decks were reoptimized for rear bagging. Many do have a side discharge port and come with a deflector that snaps on. However since the deck is designed for rear discharge they act more like a hole that some grass can get out of and don’t spread the grass nicely.
The other reason are the lawyers as the side discharge can shoot rocks and the like at bystanders instead of back at the operator.
I’ve always had the tenants responsible for mowing their own lawns and that seems to be fairly common in our area. I know I had to do it on the houses I rented way back when.
Of course there are always tenants that will stop mowing when they know they will be moving out soon.
For that I created a special mower with pieces of my RWD Toro and my late FIL’s high wheel FWD Toro. I placed the big wheels on the front of my RWD unit. Because they are mounted at the height for the smaller wheels it gives it a rake when the adjusters are at the same setting. That allowed it to attack really long grass great. It also worked such that putting the front on the lowest setting and the rear near the top it sat level for the clean up passes.
Back when I owned a lawn care business, we got some jobs from real estate agents representing owners of rental properties, or the owners themselves. The worst were ones where the tenants were responsible for cutting the grass but didn’t keep up on it. Some also left trash around the yard that was obscured by the growing grass. The agents or owners would call us to clean up between tenants, or when the town threatened them with fines for unsightly properties.
Because we didn’t want to abuse our good mowers, we would schedule a bunch of those jobs for one day, and rent a high-wheel mower with a belt-driven blade. Though we picked up as much trash as we could see, there were always hidden objects waiting to be found by the blade.
We were fortunate to never hurt anybody or damage any property when the mower found and launched hidden objects. I still remember an airborne battery whizzing past my business partner’s head before striking the side of a neighboring house, uncomfortably close to a window.
We had insurance, and we charged charged extra for those jobs, but eventually stopped taking them when our business became more successful and we no longer felt the need to take those risks for a few dollars.
Interesting story and comments. As a kid my dad forced an electric lawnmower on us, an 18 inch Sunbeam with a cast aluminum deck. It used an extension cord. It’s an odd concept to mow the lawn and drag the cord every where. We got a Briggs gas mower after Dad ran over the cord one too many times.
I’ve used and recycled dozens of free of cheap used mowers. I much prefer the Tecumseh engines over Briggs and Stratton. They have more power, don’t get bogged down in longer grass and seem to be lighter. But they’re more vulnerable to bending their shaft on rocks etc.
Agree fully about the side discharge being so much easier to rip through tall grass. For my home and for our lakeside cottage I prefer to use old Black & Decker electric mowers – no gas, no oil, no fumes to breathe in during the hot, humid Ontario summers.
I specifically look for the ones with the handle that flips backwards and forwards for quick and easy reversing direction. Even though they are electrics, I’ve never had trouble getting through thick grass with the side discharges.
I love Sears Craftsman mowers and had three or four of them, all but one of them used. I gave away the one new one I had (it was only an okay mower) because I found a used one for cheap that was more powerful. I used it for years until I accidentally hit the water meter cover with it last year. I’ve never destroyed an engine so utterly before.
I had no time to screw around with Craigslist so I went over to Lowes and bought the cheapest gas mower they had. It was this one, a Bolens, and it both mulches and side discharges:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Bolens-140-cc-21-in-Gas-Push-Lawn-Mower-with-Briggs-Stratton-Engine/50119597
That one’s not available anymore but this one is:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Bolens-125-cc-20-in-Gas-Push-Lawn-Mower-with-Briggs-Stratton-Engine/50119621
If you really liked your Montgomery Ward mower, it may be possible to replace the engine with one of those cheapo Harbor Freight Predator engines.
https://www.harborfreight.com/engines-generators/gasoline-engines/55-hp-173cc-ohv-vertical-shaft-gas-engine-epacarb-69731.html
Harbor Freight Coupons
https://www.hfqpdb.com/
I used to drag home mowers to fix & sell. But around here, nobody wants to pay more than about $50 for a used mower unless it’s a Honda. If all they needed was to clean the carb and tighten, adjust & lube everything else, it might be worth it. But any extra part is usually a deal killer. On any mower built in the last 30 years, the brake cable is almost always rusted solid from sitting outside and those can add $20 to the repair cost. Finally, two years ago, the County Zoning Nazis sent their anti-hoarding swat team to my place. So most of my ‘inventory’ is now gone!
Happy Motoring, Mark
Timing is everything. Here in CO the grass grows like crazy in April/May. If you get a mower on Craig’s List by mid-May, when new homeowners or renters are somewhat desperate, you can sell any mower and get 1/2 the price of a comparable new one. I got $150 each for those two Honda-engined mowers I found in the alley. Both needed $15 drive cables. B&S or Tecumseh push mowers bring $75, and usually just need a carb cleaning.
I probably spend 10 hours/year doing it and I enjoy fiddling with engines. A nice break from landlording.
As Jason noted he has a 3 in 1 (rear bag, mulch or side discharge), which is the only style I’ll look at for for my needs.
As with Paul, I can have an aggressive spring mowing season, and unless I want to mow every three days, the side discharge is necessary. It’s a bit wonky, but meets the needs of a smooth quarter acre. Not so great if you have rough ground as the side deflector is too easy to knock off. Now that I have slow fall growth, if I keep up, I can mulch most of the leaves. There are a couple of large Maples that will drop in about a day in the next week or two, and sometimes I have to bag that – usually just once a year.
I learned a bit about carbs myself this year. Cleaning up my mom’s acreage for sale, I resurrected her Toro Recycler with a Tecumseh engine. I eventually had it running well, then I started losing power until it died.
Some Google time, and I decided it was the carb, and contemplated a rebuild, but waiting for a kit while selling a home wasn’t going to work. I was a bit worried about disassembling it to clean it as the gaskets looked like they would crumble. Based on a few things I read, I simply backed out the carb bowl screw (which doubles as a jet), sprayed carb cleaner through the jet port in the screw, then, with the air filter off, sprayed cleaner back through the carb. Replaced the bowl screw, and damn, it worked perfectly.
In hindsight, I probably got rid of a perfectly good mower a few years ago now that I understand mower carbs better.
But, its replacement, which has a no prime automatic choke Honda engine has been a treat. My first Honda. Still plenty noisy, but quieter than a B&S or Tecumseh at full song, and incredibly easy to start. I looked at electrics, but in 2019 the reviews all indicated I would be disappointed dealing with a quarter acre.
Cheap, simple, and doing the job….
The switch from all steel to steel /plastic decks turned me off to purchasing many of the new models. Mounting the front wheels in a plastic add on doesn’t inspire thoughts of longevity to me!
Hi,
so I am not the only one who is fond of old lawn machinery! My premises are one acre with many trees and grass. Most of the mowing is done by a NOMA 42″ riding mower powered by a B&S V2 535 cc motor and a 6 speed Spicer gear box. In operation since 1994 with zero problems. In addition I have got a Toro Whirlwind Mk1 with Tecumseh engine model 1968. Again zero problems!
Both have side eject openings that are great for me!
Bought a mulching mower, gonna save the environment. The Scott’s salesman came by and said I have thatch! But I said I thought it was mulch as it’s supposed to decompose and make me winner of “yard of the month “ trophy. Now I’m confused is mulch thatch? Is thatch mulch? I’m gonna stop mowing and buy a goat.
I’ve been using my little 26 year old Murray with a 3hp Briggs for years. I’d like to get a new self propelled that’s a little bigger but this thing just keeps on going, every fall I stick it in the shed and every spring I pull it out and put some fresh gas in it and it starts with a half a pull every time. 7 years ago the town we were living in was flooded and my back yard and shed were in 5 ft of Illinois river water, I just put new oil and gas in it and after a couple pulls and pumping the primer it started up and ran a little rough for a few minutes but then it smoothed out and has ran fine ever since. I might give in and get something new next year but I’ll probably keep the old one for a spare.
I firmly believe electric is the way to go. I have a friend who was an early adopter and purchased one of the the first battery powered Toro push mowers. It has to be at least 25 years old by now and he said he will never sell it. Zero maintenance, zero emissions and very quiet. The only maintenance cost is when a battery craps out every 5-6 years if remember correctly and it was likely ni-cad. Taking your semi-commercial usage into account I don’t think battery power has matured enough for your specific segment. I searched and didn’t find any commercial push mowers so energy requirements likely exceed current battery capacity. I’m thinking you do all your mowing in one day just to get it done. Perhaps mowing could be spread out over multiple days so you could get by with fewer batteries to swap. I found a reasonably priced yet highly rated Harbor Freight (if your not allergic to them as some are) push mower for your consideration below.
$249.00 Harbor Freight Atlas Push Mower
$29.99 Standard Charger
$59.99 Rapid Charger
$110.00 80 Volt Battery
I’ve thought about having to deal with a lot of lawn to mow using a battery powered mower. I think the only strategy you could employ is to own more than one battery set and a fast charger or two. The downsides to that is cost, of course and the fact that quick chargers seem to wear out batteries faster than slow charging. It could be done, but it won’t be cheaper than curbside junker ICE mowers and a couple of jerry cans of gasoline.
Paul, I love this site for the cars and all the great contributors talking about them in all sorts of posts, but your general take on life and with it finance really is a cornerstone of the appeal for me.I really appreciate all these posts from you about all things. It’s very valuable and inspirational to me.
As for lawnmowers, I bought my first two years ago when we moved into a house and it was new. That still bothers me. I should have got a used one. But my Stiga 45S should at least last a while and give me my money’s worth over time.
+1 for that first paragraph. Paul is good at life.
Several years ago, I was experiencing a lot of back pain. The house I owned then had a big bank in the front of my property. I’d a generic Murray type of push mower that I’d owned for close to 15 years at that time with the good old Tecumseh engine, but it was rather heavy (lots of Cleveland steel in that baby). When the motor finally died, I tried a cheapo Poulan from K-mart. But the emissions friendly B&S motor was terrible. In my search for something lighter, I ended up buying a Worx 56V battery powered 3 in 1 mower (mulcher, bagger & side discharge). It was a lot lighter than even the cheapest ICE mower I could find and the lawn at my old house was closer to a standard suburban lot. I never ran out of battery unless I let the lawn get too long. Like other mowers, it adapts to your lawn, at the expense of battery power.
Now, six years later, I still love that mower. Maintenance is super simple, essentially make sure the batteries are charged, sharpen the blade when necessary and squirt a little lube on the wheels as needed. When I’m done, I smell like cut grass, not exhaust. I’m generally less spent when done mowing as I’m not absorbing the heat of the engine, too. Finally, after six years, the batteries are starting to show degradation. This house I’m in now has a much smaller lawn (by about half) than the other house, and I notice that the batteries are routinely using 2/3 of the charge to get the lawn done. I would use a full charge to do my other lawn, but again, it was much bigger.
I liked this mower so much that I’ve purchased a bunch of other battery powered lawn equipment. Mostly for the same reason as the mower, nearly zero maintenance, little noise and I don’t smell like exhaust. I am disappointed in Worx as I’ve been waiting to buy a snow blower from them, but there’s no indication they plan on offering one. I may go Toro on that front. Once I do that, I will have no ICE powered lawn tools, but I won’t be sad. For the average homeowner like me, this is the way to go.
Had a hand me down Worx mower from my FIL for a season. Cut very well but battery crapped out only 1 year after purchase. Replacement was free but they wanted $50 for shipping and handling while still under warranty. Eventually they shipped it for free but it left me with a bad feeling.
I have a brand new, still in the box MTD mower that I bought about three years ago, when I noticed that plastic was being substituted for the front wheel mounting section! Ironically, after buying it, I FOUND an almost new IDENTICAL mower at an abandoned house, which with a little maintenance came back to life. All of my mowers are side discharge, or mulch, and join company w/ my 20+ year old MTD lawn tractor. Since the addition of ethanol, I’ve found that it’s best to let the engine run out of gas at the end of the season, to minimize corrosion, also I dose my fuel with Sat-Bil and anti ethanol additive.
Way back in the mid 80’s I bought a used 4hp Toro snow blower. First time I used it I was almost finished when there was a bit of a bang and the snow stopped flying. Closer exam revealed an oil leak which led to the hole in the side of the block. I pulled the motor apart put in exactly one new part, a connecting rod. Same piston, rings, piston pin retainer clips, some sealant on the gaskets. I knocked off the fractured pieces of the engine block around the hole, ground off the paint, hammer a piece of scrap aluminum to cover the hole and attached the patch with some sheet metal screws. Ran for another 30 years. Found the problem when I was checking torque specs. I noted the engine rpm’s for the gov settings and decided to check, running about 2 grand faster than spec. I attached a photo that I took of the engine the day I sent it down the road to its new owner. My son-in-law had a used one with a bigger engine so time to move up.
Just brought a locally made NZ 20 inch Lawnmaster with a US made 7.25 hp B&S OHV engine, which is the opposite to your puny pathetic side discharge mower.
I sound like a villain from a Japanese manga.
Must be supply problems for B&S engines as this is a big box hardware retailer exclusive but is no longer listed on the website, the self propelled version is but out of stock and costs more than I paid for my Mazda Proceed 2.6 4×4 a Jap import with the rare factory rear bumper delete.
Paid about US$450 for the Mazda seller did say does burn oil, but only noticed recently that the rocker cover is missing the gasket and has been siliconed poorly.
This big pool of oil on the inlet manifold was the give away.
Previous mower was a steel bodied China made Australian branded Victa which lasted 4 years, steel bodied rotted away where the handle bolts on, the OHV US made 5hp B&S still runs fine.
I mow with the rear flap upwards without a catcher which is a heath and safety fail but with this new mower it works as well as any side catcher.
Helps that the alloy body has a tall discharge channel compared to steel bodied mowers and far superior than my Victa.
This site still refuses to upload my photos.
Photo was 2mb, never had this problem until recently.