OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Restoring, Customising and Modifying Ride-On Mowers Homelite 12.5/39 New Beer Wagon (fast)

A bloke from work had seen my add on the notice board and asked what sort of mowers are you looking for? I said what do you recon, the same as the pictures on it (victa 18 and Rotomo). He said ive got an old ride on up home if you want it, but it does not have any cutting deck, (perfect, less to take off) so I said I would go and have a look, it was a Homelite 12.5/39, he had a soggy beer box that he said had some bits in it but did not know what they were, so we loaded it in the back of my ute (3 flat tires) and I bought it home, pumped up the (not completly flat) back tire and all good, but no such luck with the fronts, tubeless and had perish cracks in them, (got two tubes and now good), pulled the soggy box apart and it had the main body of a carby and manifold, complete air box & battery hold down. Someone had broken the bit off under the main jet where the bowl screws on and was about stuffed so I just took the carb off the 8.5hp that I had lined up for my Victa Transmatic ride on, and bolted it up, also stole the new starter motor I bought for the Victa as well as the one on it had the insulation broken from were the power wire goes on, topped up the oil and put some fresh fuel in and the battery out of my CanAm and it started straight up and runs sweet.




I wish I had taken some more pics of it when I got it as I have only got one and its not that good, anyway thought everything was going to well as when I put it in gear (transaxel) it did not move so I pulled off one back wheel to check the keyway was in there, and it was, so pulled off the other one and the whole axel came out, the spline looked ok and on the end was a groove so I asumed it may be just a circlip had come off, so stripped the ass end out and apart and sure enough I was right, put it back together with a new circlip and she's now a goer. By the way I did not want to spend much if any on this thing.

Next the exhaust was rattling so I tryed taking it off and just managed to break both bolts off in the head, they had enough sticking out to get the multigrips on but they both broke again, (bugger) the I noticed the thread in the head so off to Nubco after thinking about how to make the exhaust and bent up a peice of wire to take to the exhaust shop on the way back, first it was straight out but was way too noisy for sneaking around after a few beers, just luck had it a mate had a small muffler off some sort of mini bike in his trailer he was taking to the tip, so I snaveled that and this is the result.



I give it a paint with some off the shelf hammertone green and a can off black, made some stickes for it and tidied it up a bit. Will put pics in a new post as I'm not sure how many you can add in one go.

Taped up the seat.

Made a bonnet latch and a lever so I dont have to reach down to lock the brake on (green golf ball as the knob)



I used the knob off the blade engage lever for a gear lever as it never had one, and I had a couple of electrical problems so I pulled out all the safety switches and unused wire, also found why there was no power to the headlight plug (wire burnt in half) had no headlights but I intened to add some.
wire I pulled out.

New post, But wait, theres more!

I had to do it.

Next I seen on Youtube how some young blokes make there ride on go faster by doing pully swaps, cutting off the mower drive pully and welding it back on where the engine pully was making it a bigger pully. I was thinking of bigger wheels? so went down the second hand joint to see if they had any small ATV wheels or ride on wheels, he said he was scrapping an old ride on all he wanted was the 8hp B&S off it. it was an old Snapper mower with handle bars (bloody heavy), so took it home and dropped the engine off it and guess what? the pully off it was the same size as the mower pully on the Homelite(now Victa) so off with the pullys and fitted the new one up, had to shorten the idler/clutch pully arm by 20mm to acomodate the bigger engine pully.


the snapper pully had an aluminium drive plate on the bottom of it that held the pully on so when I took it off I had to weld the pully to the center peice. Made up a test belt by cutting mine and joining about 3 inches of another one into it by stiching it with wire for a test run and it now goes plenty quick enough got a new belt and some lights to put on it.



55W quarts hel oh and had an old harley tail light so on it went.


But wait theres more and you get a free set of steak knives.

Next a nudge bar.



Oh, this is the new pully compared to the old.

well thats what I've been doing for the last 3 days I still have to put the flat tray on for the eski/spray unit and whant to make a decent tow bar with 50mm ball, and aslo going to pull the transaxel back out and weld the sun gears for more traction.
give me your feedback I dont care if it is negative or positive, the engine is so sweet I cant belive it, it owes me $189 at the moment, good fun for under 200 bucks.

Here's my honest feedback Jonesy: That looks bloody brilliant for under $200 and 3 days work. I really like what youve done with the exhaust, a powerpipe which cost you net to nothing. Well done, i wish i had the room for one of those around here but somehow i dont think an average suburban block is big enough, unless i just keep going round and round the clothes line.lol
Once again mate, well done, very impressive!!

I can't see a support strap on the exhaust pipe/muffler. Because it extends a long way back from the exhaust port, it will need a support. Just a U bracket around either pipe or muffler, as far back as possible, will be suitable.

This next point I'm sure you already know, but I have to say it: that machine has way too narrow a track to be operated on a cross slope. With those tiny front wheels, if you drop a front wheel into a wombat hole or whatever, it will roll for sure, and it is much too heavy a machine to hold up with the back of your neck. Quadriplegia is no fun, I'm told. Why not make a really stylish Roll-Over Protection System for it?

And it looks great, by the way.

Thanks for your comment bigted, dont you have any streets (I use the footpath) around your house? I've got a 1/2 acre block with plenty of room but I'm mainly just going to use it for a runabout close to home, gunna work out some sort of mowers wanted advertising for it, just hope the cops dont see it Grumpy I have attached a couple of pics showing the exhaust mounting (the little muffler was perfect for the job) and I wont be useing it for off road as I have a CanAm outlander for that, this is just something to muck aroud on, I do like the idea of the roll cage thogh just for looks and will concider that when working out the flat tray as I might be able to incorperate it as one. I am still thinking about the bigger wheels but it also raises the center of gravity, I want to get this thing going as quick as I can so will also be looking at pully swap on the transaxel and am looking into what has to be done to bypass the govenor, from what I have readthe flywheel fling apart is the main concern and also breaking a rod, so will leave the engine alone for now and just work with gearing as this does not cost much either, (got other projects that suck up enogh money now lol)

The exhaust system support looks good.

I agree the appearance of a natty roll bar is an important part of its appeal, especially if you have a tray on the back. You could even put lights up there on top of the bar. It is an important safety feature as well, even on smooth ground. Sooner or later some kid may get on it and do something dumb.

If you are staying on smooth surfaces, I don't think bigger wheels are all that good an idea unless you widen the track, and that is likely to overload the steering kingpins, which are usually pretty marginal on ride-ons to begin with.

Personally I think over-riding the engine's governor is a terrible idea, it just throws away the reliability of the Briggs, which is one of the machine's best features IMO. I also think you should keep the speed down to 5 mph maximum - you are much less likely to hurt someone or hit something expensive. That machine just does not have the stability or braking to go faster.

No No No,I want 30+ Kph out of it

OK, your business, I'm out of this. I think that is an injury-producing accident just waiting to happen.

Jonesy, I think perhaps that this comment was made tongue-in-cheek, however if it wasn't....I support grumpy completely.....We at OutdoorKing promote safety as a primary concern, both generally and in workshop practice.
We would not like your project to end badly.

Guys, I was just having a bit of fun and showing some lighter less serious stuff I had been up to, that's all. Have a look at my profile and you will see that every day I am responsible for more than 100 people working in a very dangerous environment an open cut mine, so when not at work I look for things to get me away from OHS and on a lighter side of life, I must have missed the part about no fun allowed, oh well I will now sink back into the background and keep my opinions to myself, I will only post if the matter is of utmost importance and is of a serious nature. My apolagies.

jonesy, we recognise that what you do for fun is your business, not ours, and a lot of people do much worse things for fun than take some moderate risks. However we are trying to build a community here, where people can come and learn how to do things properly, as well as teach us how to do them properly. We cannot, and let's face it we don't want to, facilitate people doing things that appear to be unnecessarily dangerous. Our aim is to have a community where people - including we moderators - learn to do more things well and safely. That is why we spend time here, and feel as if we are being useful as well as having fun.

We have members who are heavily involved in outdoor activities that are inherently a bit risky, such as racing of various kinds. We have had threads that touched on matters of engine performance improvement, and have no problem with that so long as the actual modification work is done properly. Obviously we do not get involved in the actual competition, which is a private matter for the members concerned. We also do not support or encourage any unlawful use of outdoor equipment, and would not accept it being discussed on this site. We are here to talk about the equipment primarily, but when we do discuss its use, that use has to be safe and responsible.

I am sure that neither Deejay nor I intended to criticise your interest in modifying a ride-on mower, as a personal project. What we cannot do though, is work with you in the context of modifying it for a specific purpose that appears to be potentially unsafe, and may even be unlawful. I do not believe that any site of this kind could do that, or should do that.