Been watching and collecting for a little while now (Supercut 20", Diplomat 430 ad Diplomat 590). I thought I would finally post and ask for some advice on a recent purchase.
I was lucky enough to recently purchase a little 45 locally and was wondering what year and model of the engine and machine may be? Is this a desirable machine and worth the intended Refurb that I intend to carry out?
You have come to the right place a wealth of knowledge here with the likes of very experienced people in this field as well as many others doing a diy restoration like myself. You will find that the engine is a 3hp 1986 Briggs and Stratton and the machine looks to be a later 17" model 45 Scott Bonnar which I'm I'm pretty sure would of been made by Rover in Brisbane going by the engine date but I'm sure someone will come along and give you more info regarding the machine and engine history. We all look forward to your progress as you will no doubt become addicted once you get stuck into it.
Great mowers. A few years ago you could pick them up from the kerbside for nothing, or at worst a carton or $50. Reel mowers, especially SB mowers are enjoying a resurgence in popularity. Some people are paying lots of money for them, others are asking insane money for them. There are a lot of "flippers" in the SB marketplace at the moment, but I think there will be a place for nicely tidied up, well priced units for a little bit longer.
I'm essentially running "no budget" for my 14" SB project, only because I intend to keep it going for another 51 years. They tidy up well and most parts are available easily. Just shop around, many people are jumping on the $$$ train and are selling "Scott Bonnar" bearings for $20+ each when you can pick the same thing up from a bearing supplier or mower shop for $3-10, for example.
I don't collect mowers. I just require Multiple Mowing Solutions™.
Welcome Thursty, and you are in the right place for information.
My addition to the discussion is to question what you intend to do with it - will it be put to use or are you looking to sell? Desire and availability in the sellers market are what dictates price, so what are they going for in your area? Here in Sydney, base price is around $300 with refurbished or decent looking machines start from about double that.
The biggest 'cost' of any resurrection is your time. Add to that the delays you'll contend with as you can only do so much in the current cold season. For example, you can't paint in this weather unless you have a proper setup. Do you have someone in mind to sharpen the reel and bedknife - that'll add cash to the costs column and to back up a step - can you blast the reel in the first place to "do it right". You won't know what rust issues you are contending with until everything has been removed - and that will also let you know the condition of your rails.
The model 45058 is a more common mower, so in my opinion you will not get premium resale value. From the images, the unit does look to be in good cosmetic shape - the catcher is especially nice, as are the handlebars. I do note the colour of the reel - others (BB) may know the answer already but can you say it hasn't been refurbished before?
Ok TC I'll bite and say that this one has certainly had the hand of tidy up merchant play with it. The engine on this one will have come from somewhere else as it's not the original and if it was then the machine would've originally been finished in powder coated Kermit Green. If one looks closely at the photo of the ID plate you can clearly see the roughly hand painted tell tale signs of a paint brush.
But I strongly feel that this machine was one of the very early built Eagle Farm mowers prior to the Powder Coating line being commissioned and thus it was still painted in hammertone green and that was around 1985 and thus why someone has mixed up some household paint that was somewhat close and brush painted over the top to tidy it up. The reel would've been finished in Black and as such it's either been freshly painted up for a sale at some stage or even replaced to to the original one being damaged or worn down to it's limit. Only the person that's done this will ever know.
Anyway that's my throw on this machine.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
Thanks for the replies everyone, certainly makes me feel warmly welcomed .
I've been keeping my eye out for a 45 for a while, and intention is to refurbish it for myself. Being in Tassie, they're far and few between. I was really just chasing a decent frame, so I feel I was pretty lucky. I paid $100 as it sits in the photos.
Someone has definitely attempted a repaint at some point, which shouldn't matter as it will be back to bare metal shortly and repainted accordingly. With any of my projects, I get carried away and struggle to stick within a budget , so i'll probably just call it now and say 'It'll cost what it costs and take as long as it takes to complete it'. Early days yet, but i can see myself putting a B&S 550 on it, and completely replacing the reel and bed knife. I'd love people suggestions on the preferred engine replacement for these machines.
Looks like you now have some direction with which to head - that's a good thing.
$100 is fine. The catcher looks to be good, and don't go changing the reel or knife until you've had a good look and even post more photos here as you'll get some good opinions about their current status.
Searching the forums where units are being restored will give you plenty of answers on engine choices. B&S are decent, but theres more discussion around the Honda and Chonda options for their smoother operation.
I guess the first move is to start stripping it down and assess for rust and to checkout those rails...
As TC suggested there's absolutely no need to replace the Reel as it will probably have plenty of life left in it. Once you've put some close up photos up of this machine we can better assess it's over all condition.
Now as far as engines are concerned I would strongly suggest to anyone that has a twin railer with an original Briggs on it to hoik it off and drop it in the nearest scrap bin and replace it with the superior 550 engine.
I along with many others within the industry strongly feel that if you want to preserve the rails in these feebley designed chassis' then the vibration that is produced from these new 550's is nearly non existent and thus will have the chassis last easily for another 50 years.
You can actually have one of these 550 series powerplants sitting totally unmounted and run it and it'll just sit there and run without much movement opposed to the earlier style Briggs units that would simply jump around and smash their casing to bits. Now to think how much of this energy is passed onto the chassis frame is really unthinkable. I've crossed over to using these new generation engines on all my own machines and if anyone brings a mower to me for service work I will try to sway them over to using this newer style.
and at around the $250 You'd never look back !
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
BB is definately the man when it comes to these machines and he is the expert when it comes down to picking these things down to the fine details. That's the one problem about dating these machines is that you can only go by the engine dates which really means nothing if it's had a replacement engine somewhere in its lifetime, the other thing I hate about Briggs engines is that they stamped their dates on an interchangeable part so it's possible it's the origional engine but the blower recoil shrouds has been replaced with a cover from another engine. Why Briggs never stamped the block blows my mind, imagine engraving a vin number on the bonnet of a car, the good thing is your machine looks complete and serviceable so it comes down to budget and how keen you are to restore it. Just keep in mind it will empty your pockets and you won't get a cent back unless you use it your self and get the pleasure out of your hard work and effort, these machines are now becoming the poor man's classic car restoration and a Sunday mow with a Scott Bonnar is like taking out a shinny 69 Mustang while the neighbour takes his plastic 2019 jeep that never goes off road.
Certainly have to agree with the poor man's classic car resto analogy.
The price of the initial machine is now the killer of these mowers as an initial outlay of $400 that's being asked and then the price of just a few or the standard replaceable bits soon blows it over 1K and that is totally absurd in my view.
A few guys in the industry have already noticed a slow down before winter came along and feel the bubble has burst on these machine as there's no cash to be made from restoring and then flipping them for a profit. One particular chap here in Adelaide who used to do resto's and put them up on eBay has now resorted to merely getting hold of any 45's he can and then stripping them for parts only and making more than he used to on a full tear down and re-build.
Personally I feel this simply won't go on for too much longer as most of these people think that these mowers will turn a weed patch into a bowling green and those smart ones certainly know that's merely a fallacy and thus why most of these young whipper snappers won't do this as a long term hobby and thus will turn back to their electronic devices to get gratification from.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
The 550 will fit straight on with the handle bar slightly tilted backwards which is all a standard part of the Model 45 set up.
I will say, if you can find a 14 inch Electric model 45 most of them have a Series 2 Style handle bar arrangement with the kinked lower end, why they were ever fitted with those I don't really know apart from a few of the later petrol Briggs fitted engines using the large fuel tank and requiring this new set up, but it's more than likely by that stage all the later 14 inch machines had the same kinked version fitted whether they needed them or not as they would've discontinued the straight bar assembly.
Cheers, BB.
I live a 24 Hour lifestyle, but every now and again I seem to fall asleep, well at least that's what my wife tells me.
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, so i'll probably just call it now and say 'It'll cost what it costs and take as long as it takes to complete it'.
