Hi all, I've found out quite a bit of background on the old girl. The restoration is complete, I'll start putting pictures up later today. It drives well too, it'd nearly climb a tree in first gear! hahaha
Anyway, the history.
It appears that this mower is actually a basic version of the "Ariens Emperor", produced in America in the early 1960's. The Ariens model is somewhat more elaborate, with mudguards, a padded seat, and in some cases, a steering wheel instead of tiller steer.
Mobilco, which is an offshoot of the Mobil Oil Company, imported these mowers into Australia and rebranded them as the 'Mobilco Emperor', these mowers were assembled in Melbourne by the Mobilco factory, (hence the reason there is no Ariens model plate), 'Mobile Equipment Industries' in Mitcham, Victoria. The 'Power Farming' Annual of 1965/66 has a listing for these mowers.
The fact that they were assembled in Melbourne, also explains the use of Whitworth threads throughout the entire machine, engine excluded.
The engine, the "JLO", which is actually "ILO", (JLO is a stylised script), was manufactured in Germany in 1965, (engine is date stamped). It is a L197L engine, with a 198cc capacity that produces 7kw, (9.5 hp), at 4000 rpm. It appears that this engine is what was originally fitted to this machine, as the adaptor plate has been professionally made and incorporates additional threaded holes that allow the engine belt guide to be bolted through the punched holes of the chassis into the plate. Another reason that supports this, is that the Ariens drive plate and pully, require a specific design of the crankshaft, which this engine has. My research to date has revealed that Ariens are the only company that provided modified crankshafts for their machines, and modified crankshafts were not produced by the engine manufacturers.
ILO motuerwerken Germany, was purchased by North American Rockwell in 1959, and traded as ILO Rockwell until 1969. It was then that all reference to ILO was dropped. These engines were predominately used in snowmobiles, etc. Hence the availability of this engine in North America. New parts are no longer available for this engine, and there are only limited sources of second hand parts.
Watch this space for more................
