free field and brush mower

Picked a field and brush mower out of the garbage of all places I think it's an older Yazoo mower i'm thinking on ripping the briggs off of it and putting one of my old kohlers on it any thoughts ideas or experience with the brands? will post a photo or three when time permits

Bob! Good to see you finally got a thread made up. Hahaha. Yeah I say swap that K181 on there, she'd work pretty good. Looking forward to seeing some pictures of this unit.

only trick with getting the 181 to work is going to be building a throttle setup for it have to figure out some sort of method for governing the speed any ideas?

Is the factory governor still on the K181?

Yes and no the k181 came off an air compressor so the throttle tends to hold ad wide wide open while the engine is off the way the throttle control was set up was it had a tube that bled air off the compressor tank and had basically a brass button that it would push that would push on the governor arm to steadily idle it down as air pressure built

the mess of a mower and the engine options for it looks like at least a two year project

Interesting sounding throttle setup. Do you have a picture of it?

Should be a fun project, good luck!

this is what I was talking about Allis it's a simple rig but hey if it worked why not

Should be overly powerful!

Huh, that's a really neat looking setup! Well you might be able to take all the pneumatic stuff off of it and setup a hand throttle hooked to the governor arm.

Cool machine! Does the belt twist from the engine to the deck? That's an interesting throttle setup on the Kohler, pretty unique.

I think all you're missing here is the spring that wraps around the governor shaft and maybe the plate that rotates on the governor shaft that the throttle connects to.  Then you'd have to make a throttle linkage.

i'll probably wind up stealing the linkage off my 301 and doing something a bit less tame with that when the money comes in. for now i'm going to look into another way to get the flywheel off check the set of the coil gap from the flywheel and put some new points in it and carl your motor is cleaner than any of mine ever dreamed of being and yes it's a twist belt setup this is one of those machines that seems to have been made with pure simplicity in mind.

well I robbed the coil off the k301 now the k181 runs like a top if a bit smoky and I still need a mag for the k301 lol now with some luck all I have to do is get off my butt about drilling through steel and put in a couple new holes then bolt er down belt er up and destroy my lawn...or the neighbors lawn... might hack the rubber off the steel wheel cores and weld up some paddles and run steel wheels like the tractors of the real old days

Metal wheels like the Amish have? neat, Due to the lack of shock absorption with the rubber tires, it does cause things to crack and fail on their machines.

The K301 had a magneto style ignition and not the 12volt automotive style ignition either?

yep 2 kohlers 2 mags no auto style ignition though that may change soon if I get any sort of inspiration. and it's a walk behind brush/field mower so I don't think breakage will be much issue nice soft field dirt and swamp dirt and all that. and I got the motor on there but I need to weld on a belt guide so it quits throwing them had to drill new holes in the frame as the kohler has a completely different bolt pattern than the briggs does and the pto is positioned different at least it's almost operable if I can get it to stop throwing belts I think i'll be set.

Cool little mower, I see the amish around me use them a bit.

with some luck I can use mine to make money cause buying them new is expensive so maybe people will find it cheaper and easier to use me instead

Nice Bob! I love that old school muffler, haha. Same style one that's on my K160.

it works pretty well but it blows back towards my legs then rolls up my body and right up my nose not a big deal as I smoke from time to time but sometimes the gas fumes get to ya lol

well the magneto quit (most likely any way) so supposedly the new one will be here some time tomorrow and with a bit o luck she'll run like a top again and maybe this time i'll remember to correct the blade direction (it's still backwards and upside down from the previous owner)

magneto came in right on time got it put on the mag plate now i'm just waiting for the rain to stop so I can put the new mag in

Sweet deal Bob! She should be running tip top for quite some time now.