OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Restoring, Customising and Modifying Reel-Type Mowers 14" Kirby engined SB45

Quite coincidentally, I found out the other evening that the father of a neighbour of mine has had an old SB mower in his shed for many years. He gave up using it when it would not start but was so attached to it that he couldn't get rid of it. Now he has reached an age where would like to see it go to a good home and this is where I stumble in on the scene.

I went to look at it this morning. It is a 14" Scott Bonnar fitted with a 2HP Kirby-Tecumseh engine. It was covered in years worth of spiderwebs, dust and a fair bit of grime with a catcher that has seen better days (full of holes). Nevertheless, looking beyond all of this was a mower that, with a bit of tidying up, would reign over the local lawns once again. The gentleman in question wanted to give it to me, but I couldn't take it on those terms so we settled on a price.

Once home I spent a couple of hours and a few cans of degreaser cleaning. The only thing missing was the muffler - he had one that was stuffed full of what looked like coarse steel wool that he tossed into the deal. I cleaned out the fuel tank and lines, cleaned up the spark plug, changed the oil and gave it a crank. To everyone's surprise, it spluttered into life and settled into a steady noisy idle.

The clutch is a bit sticky but the blade disengagement works perfectly. The reel/blade needs sharpening and I'll get this done. The chain drive seems clean and in good condition with only a little slack in the chains.

Under all of the grease was a mower base in very good condition. My plan is to clean it all and leave the original paint as is. The orange/red engine paint has seen better days so it'll get stripped and repainted with a new set of decals.

A month ago I'd barely heard of these mowers and now I'm the proud owners of a couple of different examples.

Chris

That seems odd: a two-bar frame with a Kirby-Lauson engine. I thought the early frames were single-platform, and no one in their right mind would put a Kirby-Lauson on a mower that didn't come with one originally, it would be like shooting yourself in the foot.

Hopefully Deejay will see this and set me straight.

Hi grumpy, well spotted mate, you are right, it is a late model Scotty (and may I say in very good condition except for the handles) but I think I know the reason for the Kirby being fitted...it is the small 14" machine and the Kirby is a 2HP; the 17" has the 3HP Briggs....maybe Briggs did not have a 2HP engine that was suitable or available at the time...

But the mystery doesn't stop there....if you have a look at the decal on the handle cover plate, it is the older style....it should be orange and the Scott Bonnar in the same design as my avatar above....and the same on the catcher....

These are the decals in question.

The little Kirby engine runs quite well and I have a backup 2HP B&S if it fails

I'll be seeing my neighbour later this morning as I promised to let his Dad see the mower running again - I'll try to get more information about purchase dates etc. when I see them.

Chris

Hi Chris, well, both the decals match...this may have been a machine that was manufactured right on the cusp of the change from the solid engine deck to the twin rail....the handle cover plate and the catcher could have been new old stock that was attached....Remember that the 14" machine was not as popular as the 17" or 20" machines. It was made primarily for small yards and was known as a 'terrace mower' locally.
Looking forward to what you can find out.

Deejay, the Briggs 60102 was a 2 hp Briggs available long before the Kirby-Lauson on Chris's mower was made - I used to have a 1963 one myself. Having had a Kirby-Lauson as well, I would never have another. The fitment of a Kirby to Chris's mower probably related to one of two unfortunate situations: overstocking by SB with the Kirby engines a number of years earlier, or a contract with Kirby that they didn't want to buy their way out of. In the early days of the Kirby-Lauson people used them despite their unattractiveness because the federal government made it well nigh impossible to import American engines. Why Kirby decided to make the Lauson rather than the Briggs in their Sydney plant is a bit of a mystery, but perhaps Briggs did not want licensed offshore production of their engines. Anyway, the Kirby's presence on Chris's mower is the product of some kind of economic misfortune that befell SB: the 14" mower was a slow seller, so they fitted it with a crap engine that made it just about a non-seller, and therefore the torture of trying to sell it was greatly prolonged by the silliness of the accounting department in insisting that they used up the crap engines.

It would be mildly interesting to find out how it all happened, but yet another case study of how the accounting department can louse up your business would be pointless repetition.

Hi grumpy, unfortunately the records of a lot of board decisions have been lost in the mists of time...you may well be right, but in all events, Briggs seem to have appeared on the scene with SB with the release of the Model 430 Diplomat in 1976 which sported a 2.5 HP model.
Prior to that, Kirby-Tecumseh had powered the later Model 33 with the 2.5HP HK25 and of course the first SB 45's with the HK30 3HP engines back in 1968.

UPDATE: forget all that; I have just seen a pic of an early (solid engine deck) Model 45 with a Briggs and Stratton engine....see it here;

This is also a bit weird...the engine here should be orange in colour also....same as the cylinder reel....
Maybe re-engined at some stage....It does get a bit confusing at times....Shame about the records being destroyed...

The silver engine depicts its older than a red engine by my records, perhaps where they tried a briggs out early?

Hi Joe, yes mate, it is hard to tell what they were up to, there seems to be so many variables....unless you worked at the factory, you would never know what they tried...and more importantly, when!

Seems as if I've now got two unloved dogs - one's a badge-engineered Kiwi monster and the other one has an engine worthy of a Trabant
Oh well, I don't have much grass to mow and a 14" cut should be OK. If it isn't I'll drag out the old rotary Rover.

My neighbour and his Dad came around this afternoon and they both seemed surprised to hear the old bomb running. Unfortunately the elder man's memory isn't what it used to be though he thinks that he bought the mower new about 1968 - does this make sense? Interestingly, his son says that his Dad and he were mowing the morning Armstrong walked on the moon (July 1969) and that they'd owned the mower for about a year at that tine. Funny how people associate events.

I spent the morning stripping and cleaning the carburettor - the fuel bowl and mesh filter were quite dirty. It fired first pull on about half throttle this afternoon - I don't know why you guys despise these engines so much

For my information, what is a solid deck/twin rail? I'm new to all of this mower stuff

Chris

Hi Chris, the Model 45 was first released in 1968, yours is much later than that....this I can tell from the following details....the solid/twin rail engine deck refers to the chassis design...the early Scotties had a solid panel of steel running between the side frames that the engine sat on like this one...

Yours has 2 steel rails between the side frames.
Another difference of the early machines is the screw fittings for the grass deflector, early: screws...later black plastic knobs, like yours.

Still another is the end caps of the front roller; early: alloy (see the pic above)...later (same as yours) black plastic

But the real clincher is the chain case attachment screws...early horizontal....later: vertical (Like yours).
See the earlier pic of the Scotty in this thread.
Yours is a late model machine, in my opinion.
Hoping this helps...

Mine seems to be #38665. If they are numbered sequentially, depending on how many they sold per year, it must have been new sometime in the 70s. I guess the previous owner is getting his mowers confused, nevertheless, I'm still enjoying rebuilding both of them.

The next thing to do with this one is to remove the cutting assembly and get it sharpened and reset.

Thanks again for all of your help - it's really interesting. For someone with so little lawn, I now have three mowers, including my old Rover.

Chris

Hi Chris, just a heads up, the serial/mower numbers of Scott Bonnar are all over the place....they are not sequential....in fact it is impossible to come up with an exact date of manufacture of the mower chassis...however, if it had a Briggs on it, you can date its manufacture by its serial numbers stamped into the air-cowling. Hoping that clears it up for you,

Chris, the Kirby-built Lauson engines were mechanically durable, their main disadvantages were that they tended to be a bit temperamental when it came to cold-starting, and they had a chaffcutter-like character when they ran. They were not anywhere near as rough as a 2 stroke, but there seems to be a rather clear ordering when it comes to pleasability of the popular engines over the years. The Lauson was worst, the Briggs in the middle, and the sweetest runner (and starter) was the OHV Honda. All three are capable of lasting a long time, but if you have a Lauson, it seems even longer than it is.

Understood, though I only want to mow the lawn with it, not sleep with it ...

Do you know whether gasket kits are available for these engines? I'll start looking on the web and see what I come up with.

Chris

I don't think there are original gasket kits now, or much else either, but there may be aftermarket ones, as long as the Kirby parts are identical to the Lauson ones (which I think they generally were). I can recall Outdoorking members getting hold of a few new parts for those engines. Perhaps one of our HK restorers will see this and tell us the answer.

At present my mower base is off getting powder coated and the handles will be replated when I get some time off work to deliver them to the electroplater.
I ordered some new parts that were delivered today - general rubbers, cork linings and replacement bearings.
The reel and blade are being sharpened. I'm not using the guys that did the assembly in my other mower (Morrison reel mower) - whilst they did a good job sharpening the reel and blade and replacing the bearings, they assembled the reel the wrong way around. Besides, I've since found a good local business who have been sharpening these for years.
Should be nice when I get it all back together.
I've also found a distributor in the US that still stocks Lauson-Tecumseh parts - mainly gaskets and oil seals. They have been very helpful with me sending photos and measurements and them matching with new-old-stock or superceded items. The parts should arrive next week sometime and I'll let you know how I go. I guess I'll still fit the B&S engine and just hang on to the Kirby-Tecumseh as a spare.
Chris

Thanks Chris, it's great to see you're getting this one sorted, could you please send me a PM as to where you sorted the Scotty parts from...(just click on my username and select from the drop-down list) as this could come in handy for future reference and also where you can source Kirby -Tecumseh parts from the USA.

Re:The Morrison "Ransome" unit...Chris, I was reluctant to say at the time, that the end result from that engineer was more that a little disappointing... not only did they assemble the unit back to front....but the stripping and cleaning and painting does not do justice to your restored machine....the bearing supports (end-caps) have, in one end, not been painted at all, and the other is the incorrect colour....the reel should have been sand blasted and spray painted at the least....you can still see the rust under the paint. The top of the bottom blade should not be painted at all.

Preferably reels should be blasted and powder-coated to give this sort of result from deviosi (Steve) one of our members here:


Please forgive me for my criticism of their work, but you are the person paying for it....If it were me, I would return it and get them to complete it properly. This would then compliment the hard work, that you have put into the chassis restoration.
You are doing your best work, and you deserve the best in return.

I was also disappointed - you do some things on trust and now and then, get let down. I've let the local guys who recommended them know as well as showing them the 'finished' product. However, it is all sharp and now reset. The Morrison mower is something of an experiment for me and whilst it will be OK in the end, it could have been a lot better. I may still yet do it again.

When the parts arrive from the US, I'll check that they are all correct and let you know.

Thanks for your help, I appreciate it,

Chris