Went to a chaps house to look at an oddball mower he had that belonged to his late father and he mentioned he had another mower in the back shed which has been sitting for some time and it was time to make some room in the shed. As it turns out it was a very nice looking SB 14'' twin rail in original condition which his father had from new. Don't know much about cylinder mowers but it looked good to me. The catcher is in great shape also with only a few minor dents. Mower number is 45 43997. Model 45 450407.
Couple of queries The paint colour and finish is slightly different on the handle bar emblem plate and mower side cover, is this correct ?
The air filter element was completely disintegrated and there was a brown plastic cap sitting in the bottom of the air filter housing, would this have been part of the original filter ?
That's a really nice example of one of the last Kirby's fitted to a Model 45 before they changed over to Briggs for the full Petrol Powered line up. This one sports the Black Handle Bar Shield and Chain Case. This would date this machine around late 1974.
The engine is probably a HK25 or H4-4A, regardless that's plenty of power for a 14 inch. I must admit when it comes to Twin Railer's I've been converted to the new Briggs engines which are far friendlier to the feeble chassis which was the Series II. I must say I've seen plenty of 14 inch machines which have suffered due to these unbalanced side valve sluggers that put a massive thump into the chassis every revolution that the crankshaft does.
As much as I love the look of the Kirby's hands down, I just feel that we're able to move on from this technology now and are being offered much more chassis friendly engines.
BTW if you look at many of the Model 45's being offered lately on Gumtree many of them have been already converted to the newer Briggs power plant. Obviously it's not just me singing their praises.
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.
If you get onto GA spares website they still have the Kirby air filter I recently bought a couple , all you need to do is on there website look for mower stores that supply there products in your area and get them to order it in for you , by memory they are about $12 each
They did a run of Model 45's for about a year that had the black combination then they reverted back to green all over. I've never quite known why they did this but it's obvious that they didn't like it in the end. It looks really good when new but as time went on and the black aged it looked untidy.
As far as the Kirby Air Cleaners were concerned, they were originally a circular piece of sponge foam that was just slipped in. Later on paper units were made.
It sounds like the remnants of an old paper unit was remaining in that mower.
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.
Thank's Mystyler and Troy74, i'll get a couple of those filters as another vk30 is almost ready for a test run.
BB, thank's for that info, that's interesting about the colour scheme, it had me beat as it did look original and I couldn't imagine why the owner would paint those 2 parts. Have to agree that it looks pretty average now but it is original and I,m happy about that. The remains of the fuel in the tank was like treacle so flushed through with the float bowl off until a nice clean flow, spark was excellent, changed the oil, started first pull, not even a hint of smoke, runs superb and very smooth.
They used Crackle Paint on those two pieces of panel work. Truthfully I feel that they got offered that product super cheap and thus why they did this. The Bonnar "Corporation" as I call them never did anything unless there was a financial benefit going their way and if it looked good that was a bonus.
Have a look at member Bon_Scott's thread that comprehensively covers the above pictured machine's build and how it's probably the first ever faithful reproduction of a "Blacked" model.
I took the side cover off this afternoon to have a look at the paint finish, not inspiring and fully understand your thought's as to why. The crackle paint finish is more evident on the handle bar plate than the side cover, wonder what technique was used for the finish and whether it was applied to the bar plate only as it is more in the line of sight. The remnants of the original decal are still visible on the side cover so I dont think it has been re painted. Question about the height adjustment knob, mine has a cork plug in the top of it ?
I'm guessing that's a "mod". They had a little plastic plug to stop debris from getting in there. Make sure it's clean, and pop a bit of oil down there.
Not the greatest high adjuster design in the world, but it works.
I don't collect mowers. I just require Multiple Mowing Solutions™.
Yes as MS has stated the front roller adjuster design wasn't the flashest bits of engineering but as I've said previously many of times that the Model 45 was only ever made as a domestic mower and not a precision Greens Mower, thus the adjuster was pretty agricultural.
The early Brass cast adjusters never have a plug inserted while the later ally die cast units did so as to keep moisture out and protecting the very corrosion vulnerable metal to not be attacked by the elements. Again the ally was cheaper than the previous brass unit, it was also lighter.
The Black paint used wasn't exactly a fantastic product and didn't really stand the test of time, but like I suggested it was probably offered to SB at a really cheap price or may have even been a give away by their paint supplier, of whom we still don't know who that was.
Everything points towards to either Dulux or Solver being the supplier as those two had local manufacturing plants here in Adelaide and the Bonnar's pretty much used local suppliers where ever they could. The Briggs engine was the biggest foreign import item used on their machines, while the Kirby's were made in Ballarat.
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.
