OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Restoring, Customising and Modifying Tech Talk whirlwind tiller made by masport

My Peerless 220 was dual voltage: 240 or 480 (it was designed to be a farm welder: Peerless is located in Bendigo in regional Victoria). However usually you can run 480 Volt welders on 415 Volts (phase-to-phase across a 3 phase supply): you only lose 14% of the secondary voltage. Incidentally there is no such thing as a 3-phase welder, except for the rotary ones like the old EMF DC welder that looked like R2D2 (DC motor-generator set with vertical shaft). Welders that plug into a 3 phase supply normally just have one transformer, connected phase-to-phase. The Peerless 220 was far from being the worst welder I've used - my old CIG portable, with the secondary wound from aluminium strip, was easily the worst. However the Peerless 220 didn't sound smooth and didn't run very smoothly either. I think there were oscillations going on in its transformer during welding. It isn't obvious how crummy that is until you try using a really good stick welder.

It might take a while to get the oil out of all the wrong places on your tiller engine, now that you've corrected the oil level. If you just do the oil-in-the-plughole trick you'll know whether it needs rings or not. Of course it is possible it will have a worn or scored bore as well - have to take the head off to see.

If i remember right i did have the head off and it looked good.

Or maybe i didnt have the head off becuase the valve clearances were OK.


Doesnt matter, its in the old mans shed now. It works, but he will do what he did with the 2 Bob's i fixed for him. Told him to go run them once a month. 4 months later he hadnt started either of them and now neither go.


So it wont go before it gets used if you get what i mean.

All done

I'm not very fond of the speed control Bob, but otherwise it looks good. Why have a remote speed control? My Alroh Imp edger just has the pull-push control on the governor and it's fine: I don't even change the setting for starting, since it has a plug-shorting kill switch. Buy it, set it, use it, forget it. I don't even worry about old petrol - we don't have the nasty additives here that make it unstable over moderate amounts of time. I have never had any problems with petrol a few years old. (Of course, fuel containing ethanol is a different story - for one thing, if you leave it in the tank it may eat the Briggs diaphragm. The main issue, though, seems to be the octane improvers and refining techniques used in the US.)

I've got one of those Masport Whirlwind machines - still going strong after 40 years of abuse. Not long after obtaining it I purchased the optional double tines that doubled the digging width. Gave up using the attachments that came with it - edger and weeder as it was too much hassle changing them over - just stuck with the digger. B&S 5 HP engine is a real workhorse - only ever changed the plug, oil and cleaned the air filter - getting hard to start now but "Start Ya Bastard" gets it going second squirt/pull every time now.

David, it would be much better to clean out your fuel tank and carburetor to get it running properly again, rather than use starting fluid. The fluid is likely to harm your engine.

If you post the long string of numbers from the cooling air cowl on your engine, I can tell you some details about the engine and give you a link to the B&S overhaul page for your carburetor. We can help you with any questions you have along the way, too.

Thanks Grumpy - talk about stating the bleeding obvious ! I got the complete B&S manuals on CD I bought when I needed to overhaul the engine on the ride on - never thought of using for the digger Guess as I could get it started never considered a problem - better take some time out and 'sharpen the axe'

PS anyone know if you can still obtain the weight for the front - never had one but sure would help keeping it in the ground.

Short of finding a machine thats got one that comes with it, id say theres little hope.

Not sure what the new ones have, if they have it with minimal fuss you might be able to fit a new one. The machines are now Metric instead of imperial.

The weight just sits on there.
I would keep an eye out for an old Vice or something thats a big heavy lump of cast Iron or steel. Drill a hole and put a pin or bolt through so it will go down in the hole on the front.
Make up a saddle over the tube at the back.


Of course lead would work too. Some old flashing or similar. You would melt and cast it into whatever shape you like. Or just wrap strips of it round the main shaft but that might not get the weight forward enough.



Not sure what you mean about the double width??? Was only 2 rows of blades the standard thing???
The one this thread was about had 4 rows of tines. The other one that Dad has at his place (older going by the motor) only has 2 rows of tines.

I contacted our Moderator Bruce at Outdoorking - he can get me one for not too much moneys but the postage is a killer at $45.

The standard version only had two tines and and extra two were available as an optional extra - that made it double the width as in the photo above.

Large chunks of cast iron are not usually hard to find, they are just hard to get rid of when you don't want them. Of course they usually need reshaping, which can be a slow and arduous process if you have to use a hacksaw by hand. My usual approach to such things is to find something that is a bit bigger, and remove the surplus. In this case it looks as if it has a couple of tapped holes in its underside, for attaching bolts. The handle on the top may be useful for lifting the front of the machine, to make it easy to drag it around the property.

I should have taken some extra pics.




The weight has a pin, (if memory is right, its steel, pressed into the weight from the underside, could even be a bolt with no head) it goes in a hole in the front cover on the front of the gearbox. Its cast has a step on it and shims between it and the bearing in the front of the gearbox.
The pin has a hole in the bottom for a split pin so it cant lift out.
At the back of the weight on its underside, theres an arch that straddles the pto tube.

Find the slide out of a big broken vice. Cut the jaw end off or down and shape it to the arch. Or if its busted cut up some steel plate and bolt that to the front. Drill a hole in the other end and drop in a bolt. Tip it up side down, bend up some steel rod into a handle and hook it in where the screw used to go. Melt some lead up in a pot and fill the channel around the screw with lead, maybe a few holes horizontally and poke some bolts or pins in the side to act as re-bar. would be a good little afternoon project.

What is the weight of the 'weight' ? - been looking at a piece of rail track - I have two bits here I use as anvils but they have flats welded on for feet - need to get another bit. Top is OK for width but the wider bottom will need trimming.

Hard to get a sense of scale from the picture, but it looks like about 5-7 kg. Most flat-bottom rail is between 40 and 70 kg per metre, so you would only need a short piece - somewhat more than 10 cm by the time you narrowed the flat bottom and added a handle on top. (I'm talking about serious railway line, not tram rail or crane rail.) It would be very helpful if Bob could weigh his - pity to spend hours cutting a piece of rail only to find the weight is wrong. Rail line is structural steel, not mild steel, which makes cutting it a bit slower. My power hacksaw would take a number of minutes to cut it to length, and milling or sawing the bottom flange would take a while.

Measured the rails - the biggest is a straight piece - no base plate it weighs in at 100Kg per meter the other is a short piece welded vertically to a base plate and weighs in at 40Kg per meter. The big piece is 85mm across the top and too big for a digger weight as there is only 75mm clearance between the tines. The small (and the one I use the most) is 65mm across the top and perfect size to make into a digger weight. - now to go searching.

Sorry cant give any more info.

Its in dads shed, 3 1/2 hrs away.

Let me know, next time im up there i can weigh it.

At a guess, i would say 5-7 kg would be a good ball park, but it could be more. Its a decent lump, that for sure.