Stumbled across the ODK website and forums. Great reading. I have been the owner of a 590 for nearly 30 years and recently dusted off an old 430 which has been sitting in my mum's shed, unused for the last 15 years since my dad passed away. The guy that normally cuts my mum's lawns had a stroke recently and been forced into retirement so I have taken over the job when I visit. I borrowed a Victa mower from my son-in-law while his Santa Anna lawn is dormant and have managed to get my mum's Kikuyu lawn down to a manageable length that I can use the reel mower on again. It had become very spongy only getting mowed about every 3-4 weeks, if lucky. Last week I took the old girl (the 430, that is) out of the shed and after a bit of a look over and tickle here and there, lo and behold, she fired up. The 3hp Briggs and Stratton runs like a beauty and the short strip of lawn I went over suggests she is up to cutting lawn well enough. Well that's enough of my intro babble. The main reason for my post is that while looking over 590 threads there was mention that ODK did not have an operator manual for the 590. I still have my Instruction Book filed away and have scanned the pages to produce this PDF file. Hope it is useful reference material for someone if in fact it is not available somewhere where I can't find it. I also have it scanned in a better resolution but the file size was too large to upload.
The 590 sort of fell in my lap about 30 years ago. My folks had a neighbour who bought the 590 and never got around to using it. I think it sat in a box in their garage for nearly 10 years when I bought it off them in the early 90's for a hundred bucks. For a few years prior to that, I was using my dad's old Pope mower. Beggers can't be choosers. He bought a second hand SB430 so he offered me the Pope. He used to work on the Pope mower production line for many years, I think, at Dudley Park in Adelaide before Pope merged with Simpson. He then moved on to the whitegoods production line. Needless to say, he had heaps of spare parts in his shed for his the mower and washing machines. The Pope used to drive me crazy with dry grass and dust flying out from the side mounted wire mesh catcher and the carby was so temperamental the motor revs used to run away till the thing just about took off. So the 590 was like upgrading from an EK Holden to a Rolls Royce. Having the lawn catcher at the rear has certainly been advantageous when manoeuvring around lawn edges along a moss rock retainer wall. The motor has never really missed a beat. Only recently had the starter spring go on me but luckily it was right at one end where it inserts into the starter cord reel so I was able to use a file to reshape the end into the same form and reuse the same spring. I treated it to a new pull cord while I had that apart. Everything else is original except one squeaky bearing I replaced several years ago, oil, air filter and the spark plug. I find adjusting the reel to bedknife clearance very easy which I now do at the start of every Spring. I don't adjust it that close that it cuts paper but until the reel "kisses" the bedknife. I still have a good 5mm of meat left on the reel but I think my bedknife might be close to needing replacement. I must go into a shop or look for some pictures to see what a new one should look like. I suspect I might be shocked to see how much mine has worn. I've never seen the need to have the reel and bedknife sharpened because the thing seems to cut the lawn so nicely. Going so long without sharpening will probably make the purists among you shudder. If you want a better resolution copy of the Instruction Manual emailed to you, let me know. I also have the associated Briggs and Stratton Operating and Maintenance Instructions for Models 60100 to 60152, 80100 to 80192 but I suspect they are readily available at a dime a dozen.
Ah finally someone who like the 590. A Rolls Royce even although I never did like the EK. Pity you are in Adelaide. If you were closer I would happily give you a complete 590 that is cluttering up my shed.
Have you ever had any drive gear problems? Mine did work fine 20 yrs ago when I last used it but they are renowned for failing.
Enjoy your 590. They are quite a good mower to use but my lawn is only good for rotaries they days.
I can relate to the shed clutter. I suspect the drive gear on mine went years ago. I never bothered pulling the drums off to check. It actually works in my favour a bit because I have to pull/push the mower backwards and forwards quite a bit when I reposition the mower in between moss rock nooks along a lengthy retainer wall. That's also where the rear catcher comes into it's own. I don't have any slope to contend with so pushing it along doesn't phase me at all. When it finally dies or becomes too expensive to fix, I'll probably end up buying a Honda push mower as a replacement but being the Sherman Tank that the 590 has been, with a bit of continued TLC, it might just outlast me. I still have my dad's old 430 as a backup.
I doubt that they are saleable. If anyone wants one it's here for nothing to a good home And the drive gear was ok last time I used it. How long do you think a 3D printed drive gear would last? Jeff
Hi Jeff, I have seen some testing by from memory some German engineer on load testing some 3D components and the results were quite amazing strength wise. He didn't go into the wear characteristics of it though
