The Great Big Lawnmower Thread

The only drawback of the Mountfield is the cut height 22-65mm.

I'd argue any height less than 40mm is unusable in Irish Gardens, you would scalp everything.

65mm is way too low , I like a 90mm high cut .

I didnt realise Screwfix have a place in Cork now, must be new enough, very handy.

There arelimits (EU?) on height of cut, don't know what they are now but anything high enough to easily slip a foot under is I believe too high.

Those people need nanny rules unfortunately.

There's no guarantee it would even get through from the UK what with an Post returning so much stuff. There's a good selection of universal 20"/51cm blades here, they come with adapters.

https://lawnmowerpartsonline.ie/categories/universal-blades

Good site. I've had a few orders from them, well priced.

Do you have the part no. for the Webb blade. There are probably plenty of identical blades used in other generic makes. Key measurements are blade length, diagonal tip to tip. Centre hole diameter, key hole radius and key hole diameter.

If you're Dublin based McKennas in Glasnevin business park are a trove of parts.

Chinese built mower, an odd one for sale in some of the hardware stores, but it has a decent B&S engine, looks similar to Cobra and other brands. I don't know who distributes it here, but I see a 22" alloy deck variant at €600 in some Topline, Grange stores etc, which suggests it's a bit better than the run of the mill generics. That used 20" one for sale is basic enough, but be wary of finding exact parts such as cables, wheels etc. If you have breakdowns. There's an email address for the European contact, 'Conor at luxiaochu@warrior-tools.com ' on the company website, so you could ask him. I'm guessing it was maybe €400, new, or less. I wouldn't pay more than €200 for that one, looks maybe 5 years old, but little wear on the foam handgrip, so mightn't have done much work.

http://www.warrior-tools.com/product/14/

Unless it died with lots of banging and clattering and smoke, it's unlikely to be anything serious. It could be as simple as a cable becoming detached, a fuel blockage, a lot of small things. If it still turns over on the starter, and it sounds the same as it turns, then that rules out a broken valves or timing. Take out a plug, reconnect its cable and turn over. If there's no spark, fix will be simple. John Deere is a sought after name, a running machine, even 10 years old, is worth a premium. It's a big 107cm cut, v twin engine, worth repairing, certainly work an estimate.

Finally got the Stihl 5112Z delivered this week after weeks waiting since ordering it. Used it for the first time yesterday, very impressed with the quality of the cut and it leaves a lovely finish on the lawn compared to the old self propelled I had been using up to now. Glad I went for a machine with a big enough engine because when I was mowing the long sloping lawn going uphill you could feel that the engine was using all of the power at it's disposal.

Overall quite happy with it, good wide cut and when I get a bit more used to operating it I'd say I'll be able to get the 0.5 acre of lawns done in no time at all. The only thing I'm not too happy with is the grass box. I had to take it off before using the mower because it had been delivered with the mulching insert already fitted and I wanted to take that out. Trying to get the grass box back on was an absolute nightmare even though I was following the manual instructions. Finally discovered that when the release handle on top was pulled up it still wasn't providing enough clearance for the mower hooks to latch on. It's a very wide handle and needs to be pulled up tight at both ends to provide the neccessary clearance for the hooks, but you can only pull it up with one hand as the other hand is needed to hold the bottom of the box in place! So had to keep one end of the handle pulled up with a cable tie while pulling the other end up with my hand and finally that worked. So, not exactly relishing having to go through all that every time the grass box has to be put back on.

Also when mowing, on one occasion when I went to empty the grass box it was stuck and would not open. Had to get off and jiggle the box around while pressing the lever down and then it freed itself. That only happened on the last time emptying, the previous two times it was fine, so hoping it was just a once off.

But apart from the grass box issues I'm quite happy with the mower itself. It's my first ride on so may have a few questions. First one is regarding the battery. Does starting the engine take much out of the battery and should I be letting it run for a while after starting? I'm asking because as well as mowing I'll be using it with a trailer to move stuff around the garden and the yard and just wondering if it's ok to start it, drive a short distance towing some stuff and then turn it off again to unload? Or will doing that repeatedly drain the battery and should be it left running instead while loading and unloading?

Thanks for that info C.O.

Yeah, I meant to ask if there was any particular charger people would recommend. I intend avoiding the own brand Stihl one as it's sure to be way overpriced.

It may have been asked but dose anyone know who supplies battery powered ride on's in Ireland. I think its time to ditch the 5lt petrol can.

The lidl one is fine its "intelligent" and I've seen it left connected to the same battery for months, the only downsides are a) it goes off with the power and you have to reset it and b) it won't bring a totally flat battery back to life but for about €15 last time I bought one you can't have everything.

this looks like great craic, like a beach buggy😎

The Mower is a Sovereign XSS40A made in China, not that it matters. Almost zero results on Google.

Its much bigger than them, going by the site. It appears to be leaking and not priming properly.

Its about double the size of a B&S primer for comparison.

All it does is prime the carburetor it doesn't matter what size it is provided you can fit it somewhere on the engine. If its smaller it doesn't matter just pump it a couple more times.

True.

I want something that will be able to be used easily by an 87 year old. (He's using the old electric mower at present instead).