OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Collectors Corner Rotary My Southern Cross KXD-2 restorations

Finally got around to taking some pics of my two Southern Cross KXD-2 mowers.

The amount of work and hours spent restoring these old girls to near showroom condition can only be described as monumental. The first restoration was my father's 1966 mower (the one with the black Tecumseh recoil). The second (with red wind-up starter) came from near Lismore and has been dated as 1962. My father had partly restored his mower and I really only had to fix a couple of oil and fuel leaks, clean and sand it all down and paint it. The second one was far more difficult as it had a crack in the base, no wheels, was coated in dirt and oil, and three of the wheel axles were almost completely eaten away with rust so had to be rebuilt. It was extremely rusty and it took 2 days just to get the deck lever to raise and lower again. I guess I should have taken some before shots, but for some reason didn't think of it. I was too busy getting stuck into the restorations. Suffice to say the one from Lismore was basically a rusty, corroded and broken wreck. The engine had frozen in place from rust and one of the valves was stuck tight. Thanks to my uncle who is good with engines and other tasks like soldering and welding, we eventually got it working again. I was short of a carby but as luck would have it one turned up on ebay. Then I found the electrics were dead and had to buy a new condenser and coil. It took an enormous effort to bring these mowers back to what you see on this page, but well worth it just to see them in their original colours again and to hear them running.