Hi BS,

Well sadly what I've suspected is there to see and that is a stress fracture in the most prominent mounting position, that is the front right engine mount. I will say though that I've seen much worse and you've gotten off lightly with it being a twin rail machine. Most twin railers suffer much worse and are at the point of complete rail failure.

I feel that yours could be easily repaired by grooving out the fracture that's visible and Mig welding it. The trick is to keep heat to an absolute minimum as it will distort the rail and then its curtains for the chassis.

You will have to find yourself a competent welder that can stand behind his work and not just a mate that can bodgey it up and destroy it in the long run.

While I'm writing I've noticed from your photos that you have something that's a tad unusual and that is it's a Series 2 machine but is still running the 3 piece rear roller. One of the major changes with the S2 machines was that they opted to go to a 2 piece roller just like the 17 inch machine but yours clearly still has the earlier unit installed. The other thing that is different is the reel bearing sizes were larger in the S1 machines but when they went to S2 they reduced the bearing and carrier to suit the smaller RLS5 bearing as they considered the 20 inch machine to be a domestic mower and not take any part in the commercial field as previous 20 inch machines did.

I'd really like to know what size reel bearings you have and if you have the larger units then you must treat those carriers like gold as they are no longer available. Yes you can retro fit back to the smaller size if you have to which is the only good point I guess, but one of my original carriers suffered a crack and luckily I managed to get someone to accurately TIG weld and rebore the bearing size, thus saving that carrier but I had it done at mates rates and if I didn't have that option I to would've had to retrofit back to the smaller size as the costing would've outweighed the part.

While I'm at it I'll just give you a rough date to your machine. It is either a very late 1972 into 1973 built machine. The evidence is from the twin brass plates attached to your machine as can be seen in my photo below.

[Linked Image]


Cheers,
BB.

I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.