OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Finding and Swapping Idle Chatter One for Grumpy!

Here's an interesting old mower, powered by a 1952 Briggs & Stratton 6S.



And here is a 1948 Briggs engine.



And one from 1935



And last, 1926:

Ty, that roundup is not complete without a picture of Briggs and Stratton's first product, the Motor Wheel, in 1919:


That picture is from the cover of the B&S Repairman's Handbook. It is shown fitted to the Smith Flyer, a crude buggy. Here is the whole Flyer:

(Flyer image from wikipedia).

Briggs bought the design of the Motor Wheel, a 1910 British invention, revised it, and made them for several years before selling the design in 1925. By then they were making other engines of their own design.

Thanks Ty and grumpy for posting, all good for the archives, that buggy is a ripper!!

Wow, that's quite an interesting setup.

So one would purchase the motor wheel to add onto whatever evice they wanted to propel?

Yes Ty, it was sold as a stand-alone product, but Briggs also made and sold the Flyer for a time. I haven't really studied the wheel - I've read that it had an exhaust-only camshaft (most likely the intake valve was "automatic", meaning suction-operated). The wheel drive was taken directly from the camshaft, and to get its speed low enough, it seems that it had 4 lobes instead of one and was geared down 8 to 1 from the crankshaft. It seems like a somewhat practical device to convert a bicycle into a moped, since the wheel could be lifted to stop, and the pedals could be used to launch the bike before lowering the wheel. It could have been very durable mechanically compared with some types of moped, plus it didn't require an increased-strength bicycle. The Flyer however is another kettle of fish. My wild guess is that when it was necessary to start from stationary, somebody might have had to climb off, push the vehicle to get it going, then jump aboard and lower the wheel. About as safe in traffic as a land-yacht. I suspect it was not intended for use in heavy traffic.

I suspect not, I'm hoping in the next 6 months together to import a 1940's Briggs engine from the states, If i pull it off, I'll be getting some pic's up here.

I love getting into the earlier engines, but getting early briggs in aust is no easy job!

It should not be all that hard to get a WW2 Briggs generator engine Ty, the Australian army used quite a lot of them I think.

Hmm, I'll have to start hunting, that would certainly be exciting!

I still have contacts in the Army, and seeing as I was part of workshops, I'll see what I can find out. Maybe even workshop manuals. I got one for my boat engine that they stopped using nearly 30 years ago. Although I can't remember a Briggs powered generator. VW engined geny's were everywhere. Slightly downrated, but the same as the Beetle engine.

Greg, If you could that would be amazing!

I'd love to get my head around one of these older ones!