Skip to main content
Collection, Preservation and Display of Old Lawn Mowers

Ebay item 190935440251

Enter a word or two to search the forum section and click the Search Forum button.

Seller insists that this is a Ransomes 36". Looks more like an Atco Groundsman 34" to me  - what say you??

Item 190935440251

hortimech Tue, 22/10/2013

Yep, that is a 34" Atco, wonder where they got the ransomes bit from, oh and they need a new tape measure laugh

wristpin Tue, 22/10/2013

In reply to by hortimech

Thanks for that - seller got quite shirty and replied that it definitely is a 36" Ransomes  - wonder if they have more than one machine to sell and have muddled the images?

hortimech Wed, 23/10/2013

In reply to by wristpin

Did you have a look at the other items they are selling? one is supposed to be a Ransomes gang, funny thing is that it looks more like a Shanks (I think, very long time since I saw one)

wristpin Wed, 23/10/2013

In reply to by hortimech

No, will have a look. Don't think that I have ever laid hands on a Shanks, used to do a lot of Ransomes and a few LLoyds .Then it was onto all sorts of self propelled 3s and 5s  Don't want that sort of heavy work now!

hortimech Wed, 23/10/2013

In reply to by wristpin

I know what you mean, when I started as an apprentice back in 1973, the firm I worked for, used to overhaul a vast quantity of gangs over the winter, for two months or more there was nothing but gangs and more gangs. Then when the gangs were done, it was the greens mowers, Ransomes auto-certes etc. This was when an overhaul was an overhaul, all machines used to go out looking like new.

I couldn't do it now, but thought nothing of it then.

The reason I think that the gang mower on ebay is a shanks is that it does not have a rear roller, I can only remember two gangs that didn't have a rear roller, one being the Shanks, the other a Jacobsen and the one on ebay isn't a Jacobsen.

 

 

wristpin Thu, 24/10/2013

In reply to by hortimech

I've got an old Atco owner's manual with a couple of pages in the back showing the service and overhaul facilities "at one of our branches" starting with a row of guys in white coats standing by their Thames open back vans ready to collect and deliver . The "winter service" starts with a complete strip down, then  paint strip, respray, engine overhaul including valve job and  "magneto testing", and finally reassembly and new transfers.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/fwf92fmpeazlsts/Atco%20Service%20Dept%2030001.pdf

Also got a Ransomes service schedule from the 1970s showing 3 levels of service from "sharpen only" to full overhaul  - again including an engine strip and painting.

Those were  the days!

This little lot for someone else has kept me busy this week and I'm supposed to be retired!

 

janbo Thu, 24/10/2013

The 36" is absolutely no Ransomes, and the gang unit is  not  a Ransomes Sportcutter or Magna unit.