OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions On Ride On Mowers Questions On Ride On Mowers Frames Big Green Kiwi Kat

HI guys.
My latest tip score, a big green cat from NZ. Anyone familiar with these, who imported,retailed them and are there many know to be around? The 12HP Briggs feels like it has thrown a conrod so it is coming off and I have a 10HP in good condition to replace it so if anyone is looking for bits such as carby or coil for a 12HP let me know before it goes to recycling.





The nameplate codes are Model 751000 Serial No. YEO488034
The engine codes are 281707-0156-01-871125
It is a 48" cut and is fabricated from quite heavy steel.
Any information on the beast would be much appreciated.

Good score there Trev, 48 inch cut is big, you sure the 10hp is up to that. I would love the 12 hp Briggs but I am far too far away to get it

I don't know if the 10HP is up to it Norm, but it is a much later model 10 than this beasties 12 so perhaps it will be okay. Won't know till I try it anyway, and can't afford hundreds of bucks for a new motor to find out the transaxle is screwed or something. Do you know if this is a zero turn? It has two peddles, that I assume are brakes, that operate independent of each other and the right hand side one does lock down with the handbrake knob but I haven't had a chance to get it up on the lift until a neighbour comes later. It is super heavy with all the metal being 1/8 plate and larger.
Speaking of the neighbour, he may be heading down to Victoria on holidays around May. I might be able to con him into taking it with him for you if you really think it's worth rebuilding.

Trev I know nothing about them but if it has a steering wheel it won't be zero turn. One pedal clutch?, Sure fit the 10hp at least then you have an idea as to what has to be done to it. These things are always run into the ground and I usually spend about a month getting one back up into good working order, regardless if it is a little Greenfield or a Deutcher or anything in between, keeps me out of my wifes hair and that is important to her. As long as I get back the money I spend on repairing them is all that is all she cares about.
And if bringing the motor down is no problem then that would be great, but I don't want him to go out of his way, who would really want to carry an old busted up Briggs in the back of his car?

He's taking a trailer down to pick up a quad from his brother so I'm sure if he is up for it there won't be any problem about room. I'll let you know if he goes ahead with his trip plans and you can arrange a meet up.

Thanks Trev

Does anyone know of a NZ mower forum? Tried searching for one but can't find any that are of a technical nature like here. Found a parts list for this beast but can't find a users manual as Kingcat is a "struck off" company according to the searches and hasn't existed for about 10 years. All links I found to manuals were to their old website which is now defunct. Interestingly Cox registered the Kingcat trademark soon after the NZ company was struck off. Maybe they had a good reputation before they went bust and Cox wanted to ride on their coat tails a bit.

I found a PDF user manual for the Puma & Cheetah, not sure if it's the same as yours or not.

I can't find a way to a upload PDF

G'day Trev,
These do seem to pop up occasionally, but aren't common. Don't know of any Kiwi OPE forums, and the old Kingcat Mowers NZ website name now belongs to some used car yard...

However, there are Web archives of it from 2014 which have some manual downloads:

http://web.archive.org/web/20140624052058/http://www.kingcat.co.nz/ [you'll have to copy and paste this one]

- the 'Manuals' menu item will take you to archived PDF's. Look in the 'Older Models' section. Some of them are common to Cheetah and Puma models.

Also this dealer chain has an archive hidden away: http://www.agriquip.co.nz/products/product-manuals

And this Kiwi mob say they still offer Kingcat parts support: http://mes.sygnal.com/rideons/


It looks like there were two series of the Puma 1100; distinguished as 'light green' [late] and 'dark green' [early]. The brand/company seems to have gone through several changes of ownership, including some time as part of the Masport Group.

Cox Mowers does have a manual for one model in Oz, the 'Yellow Kingcat/Cougar Model 7301I', and it looks like they may have imported/distributed some other models.
Just to add confusion, Allpower Industries is listed as the Oz distributor on the flyers for the Leopard and Tiger models.

I think I worked it out

Thanks all you guys, and yes, that link worked great Buckets, exactly the model I have. Now to get it going again. Interesting about it being part of the Masport Group of Companies. Seems the Kingcat went through many sets of hands before it passed into history.

What is your plan for it Trev?

If all works well when I bolt the 10HP on, then I will probably bolt on the 17HP B&S Intek that I have and use it to maintain the tracks on my 100 acres, about 2km of car driveable tracks in all.

I was at Allpower at the time they where the importer of the Kingkat, early 80's
they where the toughest ride on i;d ever seen. very similar to the ones made in Horsham , that have gone now too.

They sure are built tough squizzy, everything is 3mm (1/8th) plate or thicker, and they weigh about the same as two Rover Ranchers judging by how much the lift strained getting it up to work on. They have a neat feature where the grease nipples for the three spindles are extended to the front of the cutter deck for easy access but I'm not so sure about the bike chain suspension system for the deck although it looks to have stood the test of time okay. The machine looks reasonably well maintained with near new belts and everything appearing to work as far as I can tell without the engine running so I guess it was probably working right up to the point the B&S dropped the conrod. That is only an assumption at the moment but the engine rotates and the piston stays up top so I'm guessing more likely than not it's the rod gone.
I guess the cheap mass produced Asian machines knocked out the small manufacturers regardless of the quality.

Trev, mass produced cheap products flooding the world, regardless of the quality will eventually wipe out any manufacturer of a quality product.Everything has to chase down to the lowest dollar The only exception to this so far appears to be German products that have always been good products but with a price to match the quality. Be interesting to see if German products can survive another 50 years, they survived the Jappanese onslaught from the late seventies onwards, but will they survive the current Asian onslaught, only time will tell