Hi Jack and Max
I think Max is spot on with his observation of a secondary skirt. there is a short section of the original skirt evident and a weld on the other side of the base which would have secured the other end, the short section of skirt in the top left corner is welded in the same. Without the rear secondary skirt to give the underside a cylindrical shape you would be expecting the cuttings to travel around corners en route to the discharge outlet and given the distance between the blade end and the rear of the deck I think the cuttings would drop at the back of the mower.
Maybe the only difference between the 2 and 4 strokes was the colour schemes and the sticker on the front of the cowl. Mine is definitely the light/dark blue, the Sunbeam logo is in the same place as the other model and you can see in one of Jack's pictures there is printing on the top of deck behind the engine that i can only presume is the information about the pending design number which is on mine. The 2 stroke version has a green engine and cowl and should, i would say, have a green air filter top as in the pictures the filter base/mount is green but the top is blue the same as mine. It also looks like it has a dark blue fuel tank and cap.
The 2 stroke has Fastcut 287 on the front of the cowl, would this have derived from 2 being a 2 stroke and 87 from the engine being a KAV 87 ? I have no idea what would have been on mine but in the images Max has posted the model on the left could be the 4 stroke version but I can't clearly make out the letters or numbers next to Fastcut on the cowl front as opposed to the model on the right which is clearly visible with the 287 in reverse block.
My blue base Lawnkeeper 2 has a KAV 74 in the same colour scheme as the 4 stroke Fastcut. Were the KAV 74 and KAV 87 engines the same vintage ?
Cheers
wce
