Three wheel riding mower i thought you'd all like

[trike savior]

Here are some pics of a really cool riding mower i thought you all might like.

was my old man's he bought it in early 70's. we had a split level house and one day while mowing he lost control of it and rode it off the upper lawn, over the retaining wall and landed on the front stairs. it completely busted one rear wheel and broke most of the other. he pulled it in the garage and parked it thinking he'd fix it someday. years went by and it became a table with more and more piled on it.

few years ago we were cleaning garage and i decided to pull it out because i had never seen it before. i knew what it was but never actually saw with everything off it. once i got it out i knew i had to fix it. i told him i was pulling the wheels to fix and he laughed at me. one just had broke the spokes from the rim but the other had bent spokes completely separated from rim and hub. i pulled out the torch and welder, heated, bent and welded the wheels. i was quite pleased with myself because they ended up very true, very little wobble.

put it together and got it running and it is great. my father has mowed the lawn with it a few times and every time just a big old grin. (takes alot to make that man smile too)

A little about how it works:

my favorite thing about this thing is the drive mechanism. ITS SO SIMPLE. check out the pics. you have a horizontal pulley driven by the motor. the pulley is moved side to side by the shifter. the vertical pulley has a rubber piece on it making it essentially a wheel and tire and it drives the shaft that goes to a chain case that drives the wheels. For NEUTRAL it simply sits on the bolt in center of horizontal pulley. For FOWARD you get one side of the pulley and for REVERSE you get the otherside. the farther outward on the pulley you are the faster it goes. GENIUS

It does have brakes/ clutch. by pressing the pedal it drops the engine driven pulley away from the vertical wheel. and a little metal bar comes over against the vertical wheel to keep machine from moving. It actually works on a steep hill

last cool thing is the front handlebars. if you push them down, it actually raises the front of the machine. for going over stumps and into potholes in the yard so you dont scalp the grass.

well, hope you all enjoy this as much as i do

[ebaccm26]

Wow! I've never seen anything like that, very cool for a mower.

[trike savior]

forgot to mention if you look at the angle the front wheel is at, in picture. it can turn like that. so it is also probably the first zero turn mower ever

[dustrunner]

pretty neet. thanks for sharing...

[tri again]

I call those a record player drive.
The drive pulley slides on the spinning platter like a record player
and the gear ratio changes as the seconday pulley (wheel) rolls from the center to the outer edges of the main wheel.

Man, that even confused me and I've replaced one of those driven wheels a couple years ago.

Can't think of the name that made them popular but parts like that driven wheel with the rubber on it is still avail. Lawn boy? sorry, I forget but yours looks like a private label of the common one I worked on as surely it was patented design.

I'll see Bill soon and ask him.

Reminds me of the early designs like the fly mow?

Somehow the spinning blades would 'hover' the mowing deck and how it blew down to raise the mower deck, it was still able to cut the grass, is one of my favorite design mysteries.

[JasonB]

that thing is awesome! and it looks like something I would probably cut my leg off with lol

[atc300r]

I used to mow at work with a threewheel Jacobson front mount mower . Had single rear tire and steered from the rear.

[sledcrazyinCT]

I like that mower though it could be dangerous in some conditions. I thought this thread was gonna be about a scag 3 wheeler

[trike savior]

it is actually alot more stable than you might think. especially since its so low. we have a hill out front that is roughly a 12/12 slope and i took it sideways on that and it did just fine. i positioned myself on the high side of the seat and made it so i could roll off the back if it went bad but it handled it great. we have a steeper hill as well but i wasn't willing to press my luck. it drives up and down that hill just fine but im not trying sideways. it really is a great little machine.

[kaymo]

thats pretty cool... ive never seen one like that. doesnt look dangerous at all really. i like the front lever lift deal. good stuff.

[big specht]

That has a drive wheel like the rear engine snappers.

[fastatc70]

Wow way cool mower. I am glad to see that you decided to restore that little guy, it would be a shame to see such an engineering marvel in the scrap yard.

That mower would be the envy of my neighborhood for sure.

I thought that it would be cool to restore a 1970s cub cadet. That mower blows my mower project out of the water!!!

[Dirtweed]

Another 3 wheeled mower/tractor is the Bantam. These are quite collectable.

[trike savior]

that cool. somebody checked all the boxes for attachments when they ordered that. its like a mini McCormick farmall.

[FLynes]

Here's a great ad that was in The Muscatine Journal in Iowa, from 5 June 1968.