OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Restoring, Customising and Modifying Other Walk-Behind Rotary Mowers C1208B Morrison Iron Horse 1956 restore finished

Hi All,
Just got my decals on friday and have just now put them on thought you might be interested in the final product.

The rest can be seen here:
http://s1128.photobucket.com/albums/m499/Pcamore/My%20Morrison%20C1208B%201955%20Restore/#!cpZZ1QQtppZZ32

It looks just as beautiful as your Masport Iron Horse, Pete. Are the engines the same?

Are you sure it is 1955? It is a great looking design for such an early rotary - Victas of that era looked like converted washing machines. I'd have placed yours in the 1970s.

Hi Grumpy, thanks for those kind words.
The old bloke i bought it of repaired mowers for 15-20 years he knew these motors inside out and he still has the old parts manuals and workshop manuals.
Yes it definitely dates around the mid to late 1950's as this is the C12 Iron Horse engine.
First Iron Horse engine was the A series then the C then D in the sixties and seventies then F until 1990 then V, E and M series
These were built in Canada by RPM and then Evinrude/Johnson as a sideline for outboard motors and then Outboard Marine also Canada which was then sold to Toro.

Note on the body the height adjusters are all individual you had to adjust the height with a spanner doing one wheel at a time, the body is solid steel not alloy or thin steel they use these days.
This engine is very close to the first one i did, but definitely several differences being an earlier model

Thanks Pete - I remembered that your Masport had a D series engine. They look extremely similar to me in general layout. Rather a complicated design, but you could as easily say "advanced" as complicated, with the reed valves and the centrifugal automatic ignition advance. Can you give us dates for the A and B series engines, and whether they had the reed valves and automatic ignition advance?

Next time someone says Victa invented the rotary mower in the early 1950s, that is just one more piece of evidence that they are talking nonsense.

Hi Pete, Wow!! what a little ripper!! Mate, I would just like to add my on a fabulous restoration. What a great partner for your Masport....
Once again, well done!

Thanks Deejay, yeah i have become quite attached the little mower, i love the shape and the oddness of her(sounds like I'm talking about a woman lol)

Cheers mate
Pete

Hi Grumpy,
As far as I'm aware there wasnt a B series i dont know who decided to jump all over the alphabet with the lettering for the series's as they jump several letters at a time.
The guy who owns this A series says its 1954 but will try to find a date when they started making them







Cheers
Pete

That looks about as rudimentary as a mid-late 50s Victa Pete, but the mechanical design is vastly better. Are you saying they went from that, to your Morrison, in one year? Find out who the engineer was, he jumped about 3 design generations with the exterior of the mower around the engine.

That is one beautiful restoration job. A credit to you. Cheers.

Here you go Grumpy a list of Models

Pete

Edit.
Forgot to mention that the Iron Horse engine was imported to NZ by quite a large group of lawn mower makers back in the early days and like my previous restore (Masport) and Morrison, Lawnmaster just to mention 3 used these motors on there own designed bodies.
Some of the NZ made bodies of which i have one in my shed is almost identical to the lawnboy of the day except it has Masport on the body when it was forged instead of Lawnboy

So the C12 Iron Horse engine used on your Morrison was introduced in 1956?

According to that file it would appear so, But i have found it elsewhere on the net that the C12 started manufacture in 1955 but i cant find it again.

I will change my thread title since you have proved me wrong, well done Grumpy you killed my thrill

I cannot change the title.

So it appears my restore is a 1956 or later.

Hi Pete, I changed the title for you in the first post to 1956. You covered yourself in your second post saying mid to late 50's....However, whatever its build date, it is a credit to you on a job extremely well done, mate!

Pete, I wanted to get the date correct and traceable because I think this thread will eventually be important to some people. We don't yet know how long it took to develop that first 8FH13 Lawn-Boy that went into production in 1954, but the thread helps us zero in on when one popular brand of American rotary mower actually went into production, and what it looked like. Your mower was a huge improvement on that first one, especially in appearance, and to me it looks mighty good for 1956. I can't find a C1208B model number on that list - was it a local NZ model?

I doubt it was local NZ model, I have 3 engine covers 2 x C1208B and 1 X C1202B

Is that the engine type number, or the mower type number? It sounds as if it is the engine type number, since it begins with C12. Do you have the mower type number? That might help us to figure out the year of manufacture.

Yes that's the engine Model number.
They dont have a Mower name that i am aware of.
Masport put out a Iron Horse mower with a later D500 series engine and called them "President"
Some of The earlier models were called "Rotacuts"
The black and white picture is a illustration of the first Rotacut where the grass is expelled from in front of the side wheel.
The Orange and Green Mower shows the very first catcher ever made( from the 100 years Masport book)