OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Restoring, Customising and Modifying Reel-Type Mowers Scott Bonnar 45 Restoration and Decals

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Hey mate
I looked at that mower and was bummed I couldn't buy it lol
The instructions and brochures are great
Interesting to note the original decal set has differant emblem on catcher to the mower handle.
I thought this was the case which means the after market decal sets available are incorrect
Cheers for posting

Hi Mike,

If you have a look at my other 14" SB45 you'll notice it has the different style decal on the catcher. As we all know it's hard to date the mowers, but there's only 1 month difference in the Briggs manufacture date - so you'd think they were made at a similar time. It's interesting to note that they're also different colours. One is a solid green, the other is hammertone.

Is there a possibility that the decal changed simultaneously with the paint colour change? If so, the information would be useful to restorers.

Hi Michael,
You will notice on the excellent pics from the early SB brochure you have posted in this thread, that the catcher decal (sometimes referred to loosely as the ying and yang decal) and the handle button decal ( the sawblade decal) are used on this machine.

As this brochure was introducing the Model 45, we presume that the year would have been 1968 and this was the Series 1 (solid deck) Scotty. It was finished in hammertone.
So for restorers, this would be the correct set of decals to apply.

As the date of engine manufacture can only give an approximation of the age of the chassis, as we presume SB would have ordered a batch of 2.25HP Briggs for their 14" and held them in stock until needed.

As Scott Bonnar Model 45's were originally finished in hammertone and all later models finished in hammertone, it may have been that they had run short of the hammertone paint for a period and painted your machine in the solid finish (which is the same as the early SB Queen mower)

As for the change to the 'sawblade' catcher decal used on your machine....I cannot even guess why they did that...as no records exist.

There are some points here that are still mysterious to me.

First, I thought Scott Bonnar began the 45 series with Lauson or Kirby Lauson engines, and they ran for longer on the 14 inch than on the wider versions. We had a thread about that a couple of years ago. Yet here we have an early SB45 14" mower with a Briggs & Stratton.

Second, from another thread we had a few days ago I'm under the impression that the Briggs 60102 and 60202 were both 2 HP, and the 61202 may have been 2.25 HP except we haven't been able to verify that yet. The 60102 seems to have come first of the Briggs engines on the 14" mower, then the 60202. The 61202 was probably later still.

It would be nice to try to clear up the sequence of which engine was fitted to 14" SB45s, at about what date.

Hey Darryl, I like your theory regarding the paint and I may have some other evidence to support it. I have another solid deck 14" here that has the solid green body but hammmerone on the inside of the chain case, back of the handle bar plate and on the clutch. As the pieces are bolt on, perhaps they were painted in hammertone and sitting on the shelf. When the paint ran out for the frames, maybe they used the solid green and painted over the outside of the chain case and handle bar plate...

As for the correct decals, here are some photos of other 45's (not mine) that I've come across, just to further confuse things

Here you are grumpy, later twin rail 14" with Kirby engine. From what I've seen the 2.25hp engine is the 61202 and the 2hp is the 60102. I have the Briggs instructions here that confirms that the 60100 series is 2.0hp at 3600rpm.

Thanks for that. So, are we sure that the first SB45s had Briggs engines and the Kirby Lausons came later? Can we find out when this happened, perhaps from the last mowers to have Briggs engines (since the Kirby Lausons are not so easy to date)?

A small point: from what we have traced in another thread, the 60102 appears to have had the small flat fuel tank used on the vertical engines, because it had no fuel pump. After a while SB seems to have changed to the 60202 (with Pulsa-Jet, which has a fuel pump) and a large deep tank mounted under the carburetor. Do we know when that happened?

Hi Grumpy, here's a pic from the first SB model 45 brochure (all pages of brochure on Page 3 of this thread)
Have a look at the engine on the 14" machine....it is a 2.25HP Briggs.

Briggs definitely came first.

Hi Michael,
The twin rail chassis dates from around circa 1976, this is indeed unusual as I have thought all the Model 45's were powered by Briggs by that time....Maybe they were using up remaining stocks of the Kirby-Lausons.
Maybe that engine was used just on the 14" machines for a time....Question is, why go from Briggs to Kirby then back to Briggs. Maybe there was a shortage of the smaller Briggs engines.

Could you please post the HP. rating of that Kirby?
Thanks mate,

The engine in the picture is a 100cc 60102 (note the small shallow fuel tank), so some time between 1963 and 1968 Briggs must have increased the advertised power of the 60102 from 2 hp to 2.25 hp. I'm a bit surprised that seemed like a good idea when the advertised power of the 127cc 80102 was 2.5 hp. Not a good look.

So, by 1968 the 60102 and 60202 were both advertised as 2.25 hp. Whenever the 61202 appeared, it was also advertised as 2.25 hp.

The 17" and 20" SB45s were introduced with Kirby Lauson engines. Some years later, the 14" acquired a Kirby Lauson instead of a Briggs (remarkable decision) and kept it for a period after the 17" and 20" changed to Briggs.

Presumably Scott Bonnar had some business reason for putting the Kirby Lauson on the 14". I could make up some possible ones, but it would be depressing to try. It must have been a better mower with the Briggs.

Hi Darryl, you'll have to school me on how to determine the HP rating of the Kirby, as I can't see it written anywhere. The ID plate shows KIRBY H4-4B.

The earliest Briggs engined twin rail SB45's I own have engine manufacture dates in mid 75, so that at least supports the 76 change to twin rails.

Here are a couple of other photos I've found to keep us guessing. Two different 17" twin rail, kirby powered machines

Hi Michael,
It sure is a shame that all the old SB archives were thrown on the tip, these questions we may never know the answer to.....the plot thickens mate.

Guys my 14" has a 2.25hp briggs, a saw blade handle decal and a ying yang catcher decal
Briggs is 61202 pulsa jet build date 6808053!!!
It's a shame such limited history exists

Hi Mike, yes, mate, your right there, but at least here we are piecing it together little by little, with the help of people like yourself.

Mike, does your 2.25hp 61202 have the large fuel tank or the shallow one?

Grumpy is it possible to have a shallow tank with a pulsa jet? It doesn't make a lot of sense otherwise... both of my 60102 engines are 1969 and 2hp. You wouldn't think they would be rated at 2.25hp in 1968 and then later at 2hp. I know I have a much later 91202 with a shallow tank.

I think it's shallow mate
I have to go have a look and get back to you, it's certainly not massive

rolla16v, there is no difficulty having a shallow tank with a Pulsa-Jet, though there may not be much point in it. All of the vertical crankshaft engines, AFAIK, had shallow tanks (there wasn't room for a deep tank, with the engine laying on its side), and most of the ones we see in Australia have Pulsa-Jets.

This has now become highly confusing. A 1968 61202 seems to mean that Briggs continued to make the 60202 simultaneously with the 61202, rather than one replacing the other. Also, if SB made mowers with shallow tanks and Pulsa-Jet carburetors, why did they make any with Vacu-Jet carburetors? Did they ever commit the sin of selling deep tanks with Vacu-Jet carburetors? (Briggs made engines of that configuration - they just say in the workshop manual that you have to tune them with the tank at least half full.)