Briggs 8hp Advice?

[marlboro180]

Re: Briggs 8hp Advice?

You are correct,yes they were. Check out the site below for the curious and the connection to the boat world. Now, where do I bookmark this ? Boats or tractors or lawn mowers ???

Seems appropriate now for me to make a yard hauler out of one of the Gilson's (Plymouth, WI) , use it with my new to me 1974 14' Gaycraft (Schofield , WI) put a Mercury (Fond du Lac, WI) O/B on it. Take the rig to the river's edge and promply get it stuck . Then fire up the Case (Racine, WI) tractor and pull the whole "Wisconsin" rig out powered by a Briggs (Milwaukee /ish, WI) engine.

quote from :

http://www.allbusiness.com/business-planning-structures/business-plans/127915-1.html

"Gilson was a major producer of consumer riding mowers, tillers and snowthrowers, but the firm lacked walk-behind rotary mowers. Gilson had evolved into a major private-label producer for marketers such as the Ford Tractor Division and Montgomery Wards. Lawn-Boy, a division of Outboard Marine Corp., put its green paint on the Gilson products and instantly became a full-line power equipment manufacturer in the consumer realms, with strong ties to the commercial/golf course product lines of Cushman, another OMC division.

But in recent months, OMC got out of the turf business, selling Cushman to Ransomes, Inc., and Lawn-Boy to Toro. "

edit...


"Toro Closes Plant -- Restructures

IN A MOVE to cut excess manufacturing capacity, the Toro Co. has announced tentative plans to close on July 6 its Lawn-Boy manufacturing plant in Plymouth, Wis., the former home base of Gilson Bros., which Lawn-Boy absorbed in 1986.

The action would shift production of riding mowers and space heaters to a Lawn-Boy plant at Sardis, Miss., and would see the company discontinue the Lawn-Boy snowthrowers and tillers made at the plant."

 

[marlboro180]

Re: Briggs 8hp Advice? "closure"

Re: Briggs 8hp Advice? "closure"

Well, I know some things like to be finished, I hope I'm done with this PITA favor for my dad. Sorry, this might be a little long, but just gotta vent////

Sourced a used motor for $100 from a CL seller.

The alternator had turned out to be DOA, glad I figured that out. Told the seller the alt. was bad.He replied that I must have I messed it up, like wired it wrong. Too bad I never had it hooked up , ever! ( just a meter) Can't mess something up you haven't touched. Oh well, chalk that one up to bad luck. Swapped it out with one that was known to be good.

After I got the used engine bolted up, the fab work done, and re-assembled the rest of the mower, I decided to test it out for a while before I turned it over to my dad. Turns out it was a good ( and bad ) idea.

It was looking good with some fresh paint and more power, and mulching 6" thick of oak leaves was no problem. 45 minutes of running under load,
then ...... a huge bluish smoke cloud blew out the back while the engine kinda slowly bogged down ........

Shut her down as fast as I could and hopped off, my jaw dragging on the ground. As I was walking away, thinking of all the ways I could put this machine out of its misery ( hmmm,,,,.45 or .243?) I heard a "poof" behind me. As I turned to see, the hot exhaust had just ignited the oil in the muffler, and flames were lickin' up the side of the motor. Had it been further from the house, I surely would have just broken out the marshmallows....but I've never run to get the garden hose so fast in my life! My wife thought it was hilarious

Got a tractor out to get the darn thing back to the garage, picked her up with the forks and flopped the whole unit on a bench.....

After it was cool enough to touch, I decided to look into what killed this one.- Am I cursed???? Did I forget to add oil? What?????

Well, the oil had so much metal in it , it may as well have been tailings from a drill press station. Boy, was I unhappy. I called the seller and he said I must have messed that up too. "Yeah, I did mess up by buying a motor from him"' was my only thought. So, I ripped the motor out, called him back and told him I would be at his doorstep with his paperweight and I would like to have a replacement asap.

Afterall, he did say if I had a problem he would stand behind his stuff....but had backed out once already on the alternator...After his armchair diagnostics and realizing that I'm not a complete moron, he reluctantly agreed to make good and rather swiftly got another motor to replace the bad one he sold me.

When I picked up the replacement , he still insisted that I had buggered up the alternator, that I buggered up the internals of the motor and that the motor is a direct replacement for the stocker, ... All of which is bunk.
I took the replacement , thanked him for standing by his word and got out of there as I was getting increasingly frustrated with his insistence.

The motor was installed, run for 2 hours , oil changed yet again, and then delivered to my dad a few days ago and he is really happy with it.

As long as dad is happy I guess it was worth it. And the learning is fun too..!


Ran great, happy with the extra hp.

 

[rbh]

Re: Briggs 8hp Advice?

Glad to hear you got it going, whats next, do you need to find a snow blower for it?
Everyone gets projects that never go as planned, I know we just picked up a ditch witch 6510 sight unseen, that was not run for the last 5 years.
Put a battery in it and it fired right up, unfortunatley the cluch is stuck and will not disengage and the tranny was full of water and the hypode was the consistacy of grease.
but the hydroulics work!!!!!!

 

[marlboro180]

Re: Briggs 8hp Advice?

Glad to hear you got it going, whats next, do you need to find a snow blower for it?
Everyone gets projects that never go as planned, I know we just picked up a ditch witch 6510 sight unseen, that was not run for the last 5 years.
Put a battery in it and it fired right up, unfortunatley the cluch is stuck and will not disengage and the tranny was full of water and the hypode was the consistacy of grease.
but the hydroulics work!!!!!!

No snowblower for it . They really use a lot of salt around here and it devastated our last mower with a blower on it. Rusty as 'ell in just a couple years. Dad uses a Case 222 with a plow for snow, I use a 2 stage blower walk behind or a Case 648 tractor.

Those Ditch Witches are tough as nails ! Nice find, though the water is no fun, hey?

 

[ThumbPkr]

Re: Briggs 8hp Advice?

At least with CL you know where to go for replacement or compensation.
Ebay is hosing me right now with doubletalk and refusing to reply to my emails.Ron G

 

[rbh]

Re: Briggs 8hp Advice?

When we bought this house I had to find a ridem tractor with a cutting deck and snowblower, so the step dad went to the legion for a couple of beers and asked around and found me a case 210 with all the bits for $300, that was ten years back.
that has since been retired as the poor thing could not keep up to the snow around here. (we are in quite the snow belt, 2450 feet in elevation)
so we got a 430 JD diesel, with blower and cutting deck, and that handles most of the snow load and what it cant the ditch witch will push, except when the walls of snow around the 600 foot drive way get 6 foot or better