Referring to an early post in this thread, it was said that the date of Steve's engine, in 1981, was after Rover bought Scott Bonnar. In the remainder of the thread it has been assumed that a 1981 engine could not have been fitted to a green Scott Bonnar mower. This implied that the cowl on Steve's original, orange engine cannot have been the original cowl. I have been reading the archives and it looks as if this was wrong. The issue is covered in this thread:
https://www.outdoorking-forum.com.au/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showgallery&Number=14247Hi Steve, I spoke to a gentleman this morning at Rover Ltd. that has been there since the Rover take-over and he states that the Model 45 was manufactured prior to 1980 which was the year of the merger, and that Scott Bonnar was still manufacturing the Model 45 (in it's own right) till at least 1983 and were made by Rover-Scott Bonnar (badged as Scott Bonnar only) until the very late '80s, when thay were at last badged as Rover only.
From this history it appears that Steve's engine probably still has its original cowl, and the mower was very likely made in 1982. If you want to Steve, you could inspect the cowl closely to verify that like the rest of your engine, it is orange underneath the black paint.
