I notice on surviving examples of these mowers, the slasher pulley cover has been greatly shortened and are in two parts, so they are only covering the pulleys. I am not sure if earlier or later models had these shortened versions of a cover guard. It seems more likely that this was the result of operators having problems with the guards and shortening them. Perhaps as a belt got old and started fraying and flapping about, the guards got in the way or simply wore out. I can imagine if belts got old and started running off frequently, operators would get frustrated and discard the guards altogether. The one on my mower has been shortened so much that only the front edge of the original guard remains. It really serves no purpose as the top pulley is exposed.
