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Collection, Preservation and Display of Old Lawn Mowers

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Hi

Recently puchased a 1952 Atco 14'' and an Auto Certes  Mk 3 V (20'' ) via ebay.

After draining a bit of gunge out of the Atco I fitted a new plug before putting a 16:1 mixture (traditional oil) into the fuel tank. Tickled the carb and with the choke set she started third kick of the pedal. Idled well too.

The Auto Certes also starts and runs well. She was also bought via ebay from a garden maintenance firm so has had a lot of use. Hopefully though has been reasonably maintained. I'm not great with engines so will just change the oil, spark plug and generally tidy her up. Incidentally if there's normally a wooden roller at the front, this has been replaced by one of solid metal.

Will upload a photo of them later this week.

 

brummy_joe Sun, 09/11/2014

Welcome, Nick!

I'm glad your mowers are running well, and it's always good to have a new voice on the Forums.

It's my understanding that all Certes mowers, push and motor, were fitted with a metal front roller, so I don't think yours has been modified. But as usual, I stand to be corrected by wiser heads than my own!

Cheers,

Joe

nick2847 Mon, 10/11/2014

Thanks Joe, very useful to know about the roller. The mowers are kept in the underground garage at work; I have quite a bit of spare time so can tinker around with them which is a bit of a bonus...

wristpin Thu, 13/11/2014

Your Auto Certes will have had a steel roller from new. Quite often will also have extended rear roller shafts to take transport wheels to make it easier to move from site to site. On a machine that's been about a bit  the extended shafts will often have been cut off as they are strategically placed to savage ankles!  The immediate give away will be a hole in the chain case in line with the roller shaft.

On edit

Just seen your added images and I think that I can see the extended front and rear roller shafts. As I have said, the rear ones were for transport wheels but I'm not sure about the front ones - may have been for fitting a rake or "groomers" but quite often they will have been cut off as well..

 

hortimech Thu, 13/11/2014

The front roller extensions were for fitting 'outrigger' rollers, not very popular, I can only remember seeing one with them fitted.

 

nick2847 Sat, 15/11/2014

Can understand why the protruding bars were ground off...

Excuse colour of Atco grassbox; was painted with primer before I put on a couple of coats of green.