Not the most civilised machine compared with modern "quiet" units but very economical on red diesel and allows life to carry on uninterrupted.
The only thing that causes a change of engine note is the ordinary domestic 800 watt micro wave when it pulses. no doubt someone with an electrical "ology" can explain that.
Fetched this home from darkest South East London this afternoon - not far from HMP Belmarsh! Looks like it's been exposed to the elements for a while but is basically OK. Never been a great fan of the Briggs / Marquis combination so once it's all running I may retrofit a Sloper.
Looks like the repro Lawnbugs were built for Countax/Westwood's racing team with a couple supplied to the Tecumseh team and one possibly shipped to the States . The man responsible for them was Ray Kilminster, Countax's technical director ( and builder of some other interesting machinery such as a DAF saloon with an Oldsmobile V8!) at the same time he built up some racing Westwood W8s, with rack and pinion steering, solid back axles and disc brakes.
The W8s ran BS engines and the Bugs Tecumseh's which my informant remembers as being powerful and reliable. He also recalls that Ray built up a Bug for use by Sterling Moss to publicise the the sport in its early days.
I would emphasise that it is unlikely that there was much record keeping of these activities and that this information has been pieced together from the memories of those who were there at the time so are more of a snap shot of what was done than an official record.
you must keep that origanal ben, buy the way angus will proberly know this but the lawnbug was made with 2 differant chassis a low side and a high sided one my question is which came first and what year was the change?
My Westwood contact says that Bug production had ceased well before his time with them; so no definitive answer from there. My guess is that any chassis change was as a result of the need to accommodate the revised blade engagement mechanism.
However he tells me that after he left Westwood and moved to Countax they (Countax) produced a specially commissioned batch of Bug chassis for the racing fraternity and that as patterns they had two different versions of the chassis.
Just sent you a pm Ben, someone you may know has just bought a pile of new, surplus to requirements, Tecumseh stuff including a lot of carbs from a Sussex distributor who is having a clear out / change of direction.
I've never heard Bugs referred to by chassis type, just Mk1 and 2 but the alteration to the cutter engagement mechanism did involve a certain amount of re-design work. Unfortunately I gave away all my early Westwood parts lists and service bulletins when I retired so have nothing to refer to but I have dropped an email to a friend who worked for Westwood in the early days but I'm not sure that early!
Nice to see an original unmolested Lawnbug, can't be many left. Plenty of new Tecumseh carbs out there . It's strange the way that so many people rubbish the Tec engines when in many ways they were of a higher spec than the equivalent Briggs . They just needed a bit more understanding and TLC. That Lawnbug looks to have the later blade engagement mechanism - top mounted engagement and locking lever, sliding spindle and single B section belt. I had one of the Mk 1 machines from new, - fixed blade spindle and twin A section belts, 7hp Tecumseh. Strange thing is I can't remember selling it; may have let it go with a house move. Westwood's quality control of that era was decidedly iffy , the parts lists were littered with " use as necessary" when it came to washers and spacers etc! I once bought a pack of three Lawnbug cutter spindles and there was five sixteenths of an inch difference between the lengths of the longest and shortest! You'll do what you like with it but it will be a shame to spoil its originality, once gone, it's gone and Hondas aren't the be all and end all of mower engines !
Think that to get the most effective clean up you will need several anodes - even one on the floor of the tank. I've got my tank completely lined with sheet steel, sides and base. Just need to keep the items bing cleaned fom touching the sides.
I think that there are just too many tractor mags ; all competing for contributors,advertisers and readers. The market place is not big enough to make them all commercially viable without lots of advertising revenue, and that will only last so long until the advertisers do their sums.
In my opinion, one of the best was Old Tractor when edited by Stuart Gibbard's but that went down hill when he left. He took over the editor's chair at Vintage Tractor & Countryside Heritage and turned it into a very good mag, but here again, the figures didn't stack up.
Dependant on your point of view, for better or worse, Kelsey seem to have a viable commercial formula for their dummed down offering of tractor and plant machinery magazines . For my money the best tractor mag at present is Classic Tractor from Sundial Magazines, but its content is possibly too modern for some tastes.
The Honda engined machine also had its issues despite bills for over £1100 (yes, you read that right) in the last six months! Problems included collapsed front roller bearings, seized/worn out traction clutch push rod, sticky, incorrectly set up main clutch , four inch crack in the engine platform and strangely enough considering that new cylinder bearings had been fitted, unequal length reaction springs on the cutter unit! All fixable with knowledge, attention to detail and a bit of graft. The collapsed roller bearings were a bit tricky as the outer races were buried deep in the roller end caps and required the old trick of running a bead of weld around the inside of each race which when cooled shrinks and loosens race. A sharp tap and they fell out.
Have tried to upload some images but although I succeeded yesterday, today it just sits buffering. The only thing that's changed is an upgrade to iOS8. Hope that it's not that as it will mean a bug fix from Apple!
Going to email the images from the iPad to the PC and see if I can post them from there.
No appreciable wear to either the shaft or the bearing areas of the rollers. Think that the excessive outer wear resulted from the roller being seized ( no diff action) and being "skid steered". The machine was bought by a private owner at the "closing down sale" at Wye Agricultural College for £20, where, with their extensive grounds it had a hard life, and it was only when they got it home that the extent of its issues - seized roller and smokey engine - were realised! It was given to me together with another Marquis as payment for "services rendered" - long and complicated story, but I'm quite happy with the deal!
Was recently given a Marquis 51 in a fairly sorry state including the two rear roller section seized to the shaft ( no diff action ) and much of the "tread " worn off them.
The recovery process involved dunking the whole roller in diesel, "easing" it a bit at a time with more soaks in diesel between sessions , a session under a farmer friend's press and finally recutting the grooves with an angle grinder !
Seem to remember that Alum was the main ingredient of the "styptic pencils" that we dabbed on shaving cuts! Stung like b******y but stopped the bleeding.
Doesn't surprise me that "Mountfield" didn't know anything about it as it would have been made in the days when it was the original Mountfield company which then became part of Ransomes Consumer with Westwood in Plymouth - first opportunity for loss of documents and knowledge; then they sold the brand to GGP (Global Garden Products) - second loss of company history and knowledge and the Mountfield range became re-badged Stigas. So now the company will be staffed by people with no Mountfield DNA or knowledge.
In the course of these moves and changes of ownership, old hard copy parts and service manuals were probably binned making it increasingly difficult to resolve little mysteries such as this Emblem badging.
None of the parts books that I have show the use of the Emblem name on that model and it first appears on the lightweight four wheeled machine some years later. Nowhere is that model number shown in relation to your configuration of machine however there is a gap between the late 70s and around 1986 where Mountfield are using three digit 83* model numbers so I'm guessing that your machine is early 80s. Perhaps anyone else with a similar machine can look and see what theirs is called?
This afternoon from my own garden, first the Red Arrows with smoke on and two hours later both the surviving airworthy Lancasters , a Spit and a Hurricane .
If that's the sound of two Lancs I can't imagine what it must have sounded like when twenty plus went out on a raid.
Winter draws nigh!
in Off-Topic Discussion
Posted · Edited by Wristpin
13kva , split over 3 phases.
Not the most civilised machine compared with modern "quiet" units but very economical on red diesel and allows life to carry on uninterrupted.
The only thing that causes a change of engine note is the ordinary domestic 800 watt micro wave when it pulses. no doubt someone with an electrical "ology" can explain that.
Control panel