sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Since my plan A for RRG campsite transport has proven too ambitious, I've gone for plan B, buy something complete ready built but doesn't work! It's a Simplicity 4212, roughly 1987-89 vintage with a Briggs & Stratton 12HP flathead engine. Should do for what I have in mind! All unnecessary junk removed And what is believed to be the cause of the non-running, a stuck inlet valve So out with the engine to give it a quick checkover and free the valves Now the engine is back in, carb cleaned and fresh fuel in the tank I've got it running. Needs the carb adjusting but can't do that until I've made the exhaust up for it, it's really loud on the open pipe! I haven't got round to seeing if it drives yet, and the brake doesn't work at all, it just rolls whatever you do! I want to convert it to foot controlled throttle, and only use the hand throttle for the choke. It has a governor on the side of the engine, should I retain the governor or just attach the throttle cable directly to the carb throttle arm? I know nothing about these little engines, and watched a few Youtube vids of modified ride-on tractors so have some things in mind. Porting the engine and skimming the head for extra compression are high on the list of ideas, are these good ideas to make this thing more scary to drive?
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Just snapped the Conrod on one of these engines, might have something to do with the fact that we took the standard throttle linkage off and ran it direct, they rev like curse word, it has been used for nearly 20 years though!
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Just snapped the Conrod on one of these engines, might have something to do with the fact that we took the standard throttle linkage off and ran it direct, they rev like curse word, it has been used for nearly 20 years though! I've heard of rods breaking from over-revving, and keys shearing on the flywheels (probably due to abrupt stopping), but otherwise apparently they go on forever! Having never worked on one of these small flathead engines I don't know what the do's and don't's are, and what the usual mods are for making them into fun playthings? So keeping the built in rev limiter on the governor is a good idea unless I want to risk over-revving it?
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Probably, if you fit it without it'll probably be too fast for a campsite
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Speed is not one of the goals, though any free power to be had is a bonus!
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jamesd1972
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,835
Club RR Member Number: 40
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Not sure if you are aware but if the deck is in one piece and turns then keep it / sell it. Its often the deck that gets trashed and makes a lawnmower uneconomic to repair and a lot of the decks are common across brands. Nice idea, with low gearing you can tow a car with these quite happily ! James
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Not sure if you are aware but if the deck is in one piece and turns then keep it / sell it. Its often the deck that gets trashed and makes a lawnmower uneconomic to repair and a lot of the decks are common across brands. Nice idea, with low gearing you can tow a car with these quite happily ! James Just had a look at it, it's rotten, and the repairs are also rotten and in holes. There's still a mess of big hand sized chunks of rust scattered about where I unloaded it from the Land Rover and dragged the cutting deck away! I was tempted to keep it, but have since cut the deck drive off the engine output shaft so it's not going to see any use with me now. The extra pulleys could come in handy as I have numerous ideas for the little tractor, but those can wait for next year after I've had some fun with it this year.....
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Put a smaller pulley on the engine for a bit more speed or a bigger one for more pulling power.
I’ve got 4 mowers similar to this one, haven’t got any of them finished yet.
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1994 BMW 525i touring 2004 BMW Z4 sorn and broken 1977 Ford Escort 1982 Ford Capri getting restored 1999 Mazda B2500 daily driver.
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Put a smaller pulley on the engine for a bit more speed or a bigger one for more pulling power. I’ve got 4 mowers similar to this one, haven’t got any of them finished yet. Other way round, larger engine pulley for speed, and can't really go any smaller as there won't be enough contact area on the belt. Before I do any of that I need to drive it about a bit, sort the slack steering, and I have other ideas which would make engine pulley swaps irrelevant
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Put a smaller pulley on the engine for a bit more speed or a bigger one for more pulling power. I’ve got 4 mowers similar to this one, haven’t got any of them finished yet. Other way round, larger engine pulley for speed, and can't really go any smaller as there won't be enough contact area on the belt. Before I do any of that I need to drive it about a bit, sort the slack steering, and I have other ideas which would make engine pulley swaps irrelevant Knew it was one or the other.
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1994 BMW 525i touring 2004 BMW Z4 sorn and broken 1977 Ford Escort 1982 Ford Capri getting restored 1999 Mazda B2500 daily driver.
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Good luck with making this machine an animal, are you gonna paint it or leave the patina as is??
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2000 X Peugeot 306 lx 1.6 8v Auto Dead 1997 R Honda Shuttle Ra1 2.2 16v Auto
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Good luck with making this machine an animal, are you gonna paint it or leave the patina as is?? All I will say is it's almost unrecognisable now The external build/mods are almost all complete, though I'm still to set the engine up and give it a test drive, maybe even fix the brakes?
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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That's the exhaust finished 1" tube from the engine (bit small but cheap), with a custom made muffler comprising of parallel tubes with holes driled down their entire length inside and perforated tube pressed over the outside of the parallel tubes and packed with glassfibre insulation before being welded shut Should make the volume bearable in the campsite. Might add a cutout with blanking plate up by the engine? Next up is working out how to mount a car battery in the little tractor, then there's no excuses not to set the carb up and go for a test drive
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Aug 14, 2019 17:28:25 GMT
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Attempted a test drive earlier in the week and it was dying everytime I put it in gear, not helped by fuel pouring out of the carb float chamber body! So off with the carb and pull it apart Hmm, obviously still some water in the fuel tank then! All wiped down and ready to go back together, found a tiny bit of dirt on the float needle so I'm hoping that was the cause of the carb flooding? Stuck it all back together, set the carb up 1.5 turns on both mixture screws and started it up. Fixed! I can stick it in gear and the engine doesn't die anymore, and I've found all 5 forward gears provide forward motion! Reverse either isn't engaging or is broken, and there is some transmission braking effect when the clutch/brake is pushed all the way. The brake caliper on the side of the transaxle is completely seized solid and already has one snapped bolt so I wasn't expecting there to be any brakes whatsoever
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Aug 15, 2019 18:33:21 GMT
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How did the exhaust work in the end? I could do with something similar on mine!
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Aug 15, 2019 19:41:22 GMT
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How did the exhaust work in the end? I could do with something similar on mine! Seems good and smooth compared to some others I've heard which run really harshly. Not obscenely loud to annoy people which was the plan. I had a little test drive today and it's got some poke and has some torque, although a little light on traction trying to drive up the ramps into the back of my pickup!
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steveg
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,563
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Aug 15, 2019 20:45:09 GMT
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I made a similar looking exhaust for my sons Westwood a while back. It's a bit quieter but the best bit is that it send all the exhaust out the back rather than all over the driver. I had a similar problem with the brake but managed to get the remains of the bolt out. The casings of the gearbox and bolts corrode so it's going to be a bit tricky to get apart if I need to in he future.
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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I went on Youtube to see if I could find a little bit more about them and what to expect, and glad mine came with no functioning exhaust as yeah, they come out the front and are loud!
The transaxle will be coming off sometime so I can sort out the oil leak, fix reverse and get the brake working. That can wait for now. Just perplexed why I have an oil leak from one of the axles yet they're meant to be filled with semi fluid grease, unless somebody has been in it before and oiled it up?
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Aug 20, 2019 18:43:11 GMT
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Well RRG has been and gone, and the little campsite transport project was a success! So some more details on what I built. Seeing as so many people take these old mowers and modify them to go faster and lower, it's the almost default assumed outcome. I felt like something different was needed, and it would need to be useable in a more confined space where speed wasn't such a concern. The idea settled on making a mini offroader out of the tractor, being as it already has impressive ground clearance, half the work was already done! I do like the patina of the original red and creamy white paint scheme, but it wasn't what I was after, and having a big tin of NATO green still floating about I chose to spray it green all over. The stickers, seat and lights were removed and a quick scrub with thinners to prep and some masking of the labels and it was sprayed green And a test of how much the front axle would twist Two blocks of wood, not good enough by far. The front lights were re-wired, no idea why they'd been cut, but they work now, and being 21w bulbs aren't blindingly bright but more than enough to light up the ground infront Then onto the front axle Much better! I notched the bonnet support brackets about 20mm and it doubled the articulation of the front axle, just enough to put one wheel up a car ramp And whilst I was at it I fitted a spare Land Rover Defender seat. My back is ruined so a comfy seat was needed, and an old collapsed and torn Defender seat fitted with some box steel welded to the rear pan!
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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Aug 20, 2019 20:32:47 GMT
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Of course it's got to also look like an offroader, so I had a rummage in the old tat pile and found a set of my old spotlights that used to sit on my Land Rover, and bought a practical waterproof cover for the seat And then it was onto making the exhaust. I'd previously had the engine cranking over and it spluttered a few times, but was so loud I made the decision not to annoy the neighbours with all of it's 12 horses until I'd made a new exhaust system for it. The bodged elbow was unbolted and I knocked up a downpipe out of odd bits of stainless steel tube and elbows The muffler was packed with household fibreglass insulation and welded shut, and then fitted. This led to the next problem, getting it to turn over with compression. The starter drive is pretty well mangled up and would benefit from being replaced, and it struggles to turn the engine over. I'd been jumping it on a spare leisure battery, so the next logical step was remove the small mower battery and fit the leisure battery under the seat! No excuses, with the carb reset it fired right up! Now with the engine running and a week to RRG I wanted to make it even more 'offroader', and less army. After some pondering it struck me I still had an old crappy trailer winch under the bench and tried it for size Decision made, it needed the winch and recovery points all round. I chopped up some 40mm box steel and made a front bumper welded to the chassis and added some 6mm steel brackets front and rear to hold a set of 1ton bow shackles Then a small frame was welded together for the winch to sit on and it was bolted to the front bumper to make a demountable winch! At the same time I relocated the spotlights to the top of the bonnet and wired them in to come on when the headlights were already switched on and bolted a towball to the back of the chassis And a little more trimming was done to the bonnet mount bracket and the chassis was trimmed to give more clearance for the trackrod on articulation Then some inspiration hit me, it needed a name! Out with the stencils and some yellow paint I had in the gun from spraying some other stuff.... The Offmowder With the 'build' practically complete, I still had the test drive to complete before I could claim success. First attempt was a complete fail finding the carb full of water and some more water still in the fuel tank (fixed by covering the cap in duck tape). Second attempt was on the Thursday as I was loading the Land Rover ready to leave Friday morning, this was the point I found out if it was to be a static exhibit or motorised transport. It fired up and did a few circuits of the garden. WIN Loading it proved to be a bit more fun, they're not exactly the lightest of things weighing somewhere around 180Kg, though with the mowing deck removed and winch, leisure battery and car seat in place I guess somewhere around 170Kg would be a realistic guesstimate of it's weight? 1st gear and it sat at the bottom of the ramps spinning it's wheels! With a mates weight it drove up into the back of my Land Rover, approx up a 30 degree slope! The Offmowder survived the washed out RRG campsite pretty well, recovering my mates stricken friction drive mower at one point until I succumbed to the boggyness and got stuck in the mud myself! Was it worth it? Hell yes!!! I have some plans for the Offmowder before next year, making it more driveable, capable and faster! Foot throttle Brakes (I broke the brake caliper) Fix the transaxle (no reverse) Rear suspension Pulley swap or two speed transfer box Front driven axle Wire up the winch Raised air intake Tyre chains or knobbly tyres Tighten the loose steering Tune up the engine for more power Underbody protection And anything else that crosses my mind!
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