Hi Aerrow and Mod CJ,
Yes Jack is correct in saying that I have a soft spot for the 14 inch Solid Deck Model 45 as it was the first one I bought and still have it to this day. It was the machine that I cut my teeth on way back in 1985 and as such it holds many fond memories. Sadly lost all its original sales documentation and sales brochures in the divorce back in 1998 that was left in the book case along with much other Automotive literature. ........................Bugger !
Mine is an early 1969 machine but sadly had it;'s original engine block screwed up by a smart-alec so-called Mechanic / Engine Reconditioner that decided to hone it out with a honing tool which just instantly tore the bore to bits and explicitly after I told him not to do this. He thought he was doing me a favour. All I wanted to do was change it's rings and give it a light hand honing with wet and dry paper. Sadly some of these know it alls just don't know it all.
I have since replaced the block myself and used the original Air Cowl that retains the date along with the carby and fuel tank, coil and flywheel from the original engine to keep it period correct, this way only I will ever know what has really happened to it.
Looking at your engine I notice that the engine decal is no longer there. These engines came out in three different power variants, that being the 2 HP, 2.25 HP and a 2.5 HP rating. Most of them were 2 HP units with the 2.25 being the rarest of the three.
It was basically what ever the Bonnar's could get at the cheapest price from Briggs in the States as they didn't buy enough to warrant a special run of engines to be made or specification demand orientation purchases. they just bought whatever they could lay their hands on the cheapest and then sometimes hade small modifications to the mower so as to handle whatever power plant they had on hand.
This was clearly evident when they obtained Kirby H4-4A's to use on the Series II Twin Rail 14 inch machine where they had to ad-hock modify the lower handle bar assembly so it would clear the rear facing Air Cleaner assembly. This was the first time that SB used the same brand of power plant across the full range of 14 through to 20 inch Model 45's until they swapped over to using the Briggs & Stratton's across the full range as that's when the dog legged lower handle bar was introduced to the 17 and 20 inch machines to clear the larger one quart fuel tanks that they sourced from Briggs.....................................and again probably at a fairly cheap price.
Cheers,
BB.
