Hi! Welcome to another Too Many Projects episode with today's project;
the Suffolf Super Punch. This is a classic British lawnmower, I mean...it's a bit lame
to be calling British lawnmowers classic, but I do have fond memories with my
father in the garden — he used to own one of these — the red and green. I don't know
if it was the same model of course but it was red and green and it made
the same noises as this one does when you turn it on. Which is a lot of noises.
Pleasingly I picked this one up from my mum and dad's next-door neighbour growing up.
He died a long time ago and this was in the garage for a long time, so they
kindly let me have it and I was expecting to have to
dismantle the engine and, you know, deal with a lot of these rust spots on front.
But actually I got at home had a little bit of a fiddle with the with the fuel
hoses but it started after about
...well...probably quite a few pulls on the starter rope, but it's not
in great nick. The side plate is falling off, it's sort of bent out of
shape, you can see the rust. It has got this excellent Caravan Club — I would say
1980s at the latest — GB sticker. It does need some a little bit of
adjustment with the fuel delivery. It does cut out a few times, you have to sort of poke
around to get it running. But I got it home and I just started cutting grass
with it after a half an hour of fiddling and I've been doing that for months now.
I did have a perfectly reasonable modern Flymo but the cylinder on
this which spins round, just effects a really nice sharp cut between the top
and bottom blades underneath there. Then this spins around and these are the
cylinder blades. It just makes your garden look like a film set rather than a Flymo
ad. It's stopped cutting that beautifully now, it's getting a little
bit of rubbish and so I'm going to be sharpening these blades and having a
little chat about what this project this project might entail.
First job; we're gonna flip it onto it's back and I'm gonna start just cleaning
the dried on grass that's on here off. That'll sit down nicely there. Trusty credit card,
this is what they were designed for after all.
So what I'm thinking for this lawn mower. As I got at home
I started it up out the back eventually with a little bit of fiddling.
then excitedly got to cutting the lawn...gotta watch your fingers here by
the way...I noticed straight away how electric lawn mowers, and certainly
compared with petrol mowers, have really dropped in volume quite a lot. I was
a bit worried about trouble with my neighbours, but I was probably being
sensitive. I mean it's fine it's only a lawnmower for goodness sake. There again it
was half past eight at night, I've just..I don't know. But I thought to myself, I thought
you know what would be cool, because let's face it what I like about this lawnmower
is that my dad had one, it makes a nice noise. I could probably get rid of
the noise and keep the red and green classical look and be really pleased
with myself. So I'm thinking about, as a project, wanting
to learn a bit more about electric drivetrains
and how to wire up an electric drivetrain and manage charging and things
like that, you know, in a vehicle. That would be something cool to learn about. But I'm
not gonna go get an electric car any time soon. It would be
something I would do; to buy an electric car then take it
apart. But it'd be quite fun to just try and turn this into an electric mower. Keep
the whole chassis, remove the engine and try and manufacture something that looks
very similar to the current engine, but which actually contains a number of batteries
and a little electric motor to drive it
in the same way. I think, you know, that'd be a pretty cool thing to do.
It's a lawnmower for goodness sake. But I think that'd be a cool thing to do, I think some of
you guys out there might think it's acool thing to do too. Let me know what you think. I'd love to know if there's some
sort of resources that anyone recommends. I imagine I'd be looking at...just been
thinking about a little bit...but if not probably be looking at parts for model
aeroplanes or something like that. Where does on buy parts for...for sort of
large electric models and things like that. I imagine there's a lawnmower forum
but I don't expect that it's quite the right place to learn how to design
electric systems. Maybe it is, I don't know.
Anyway I'll come back to you and this is... when all this crap's cleared off.
There we go. So that's all very slightly cleared out. One thing we're gonna need is to spin
this blade against an abrasive on the bottom right so that as it comes around
it actually flattens off all of the blades on the cylinder. People on the
internet who know what they're doing tend to use a paintbrush and just
come across the blade the grinding paste as they spin it backwards. Which means
as it goes over the bottom blade, it grinds the two of them together.
Which is a great way of doing it. But lucky for us we have the...where is it
...came with the lawnmower...the Mower Mate! With excellent full set of instructions that
I will put on the internet. "Design Centre London". Wow I'd love to know when
that was from. Probably the late eighties I would guess, maybe the early nineties.
What this actually is, is just a clip-on abrasive strip that goes onto
the bottom blade. It has replaceable abrasives, and we're gonna be able to spin
it just to make the cylinder blades flat. The bottom blade is fine, I can see
it's fine. So, first thing to do is to take off the side panel here to see if we can
spin it without starting engine. Because if we start the engine we have
to worry about the fact that when it's spinning; it's also possibly going
forward. You're supposed to be able to not to go forwards whilst you also have
the blades spinning, but there are some little clutch adjustments I haven't
bothered with and it might just go off of the distance at any moment.
It's not the right spanner, I just don't have the time or the budget or the
space in my life for a set of imperial spanners. Or in fact any imperial tools.
Sorry America. And old British people. So...big chain...great, love it. Now,
the man on the internet I found — who had a different lawnmower — but
was clearly very authoritative. He reckoned if I turn that...it's going to spin. What I
don't want to do is A. make the drive wheel at the back start turning or B. turn
the engine over and start it by accident. I'll just turn it very gently to see
what happens.
Oops...that's backwards...oh no that's backwards. Forwards, there we go.
We've done it already it's an electric conversion. Just stick a drill
on the side and follow it round. Right. Let's have a look at the instructions. So.
Step One. Turn the mower on its side or back, clean the blades, check if they're
broken. Great. Done it. Step Two. We need to adjust the gap, so
we're gonna move this up using a precision...two precision tools advised
by the instructions which are two 2p pieces. That's a two penny coin for those who
are not British.
The state of the world is that I don't have any 2p pieces. We're going to average it out at two 2p pieces being a total of
4mm. Which is a real measurement for real people. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put a ruler
on the bottom of this top blade, and I'm going to back the blade off. With the adjustment screws.
There we go. That's about 4mm.
So it's looking like it just turns... forward.
The cylinder helps keep the Mower Mate forced into there. where it's quite well
locked in. And this these this tiny pieces of metal just
apply...there's a little bit flex in and out...and they just spring it against it.
So as we spin it around, it's gonna grind away the edge of the blade.
Alright we'll go slow first, to make sure we're going the right way.
I just...I think I'm gonna just apply some gentle pressure here. I don't think it's
really...I don't think it's really enough force in those springs. I'm not going to use my
fingers obviously. We'll just try that.
Alright I can see some...some improvement, that's good.
It's getting a bit shinier.
OK, these blades were pretty bad. I can see the shiny bits and
the bits with the pits in the blade which we're going to try and get rid of. It's very clear now.
Alright I think we'll call that day. So let's take this off pop that back in its
box. There's still pitting on this but I think it's about as good as I'm gonna
get it for an old lawnmower. You can still buy these cylinders so that
might be the next job. Some of the pitting on the edge of them, right on the
blade is really deep. So now what we need to do is adjust it back down so it's
right on top of that bottom blade. It's going to be quite a few turns.
It should just touch it.
I found I needed to snug those down a little bit closer than people suggest
on the internet, possibly because the blades are a bit pitted and rubbish and old.
I think now, if I spin it back round again, we should be able to see a........bit of rubbish
spot in the middle there.
It's far from clean but I think a new set of blades might be the solution rather than grinding
away at these old things. I'm happy. I'm gonna go and mow the lawn!