An American, choked by an Italian, in Australia...

"SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media" (silentbutnotreallydeadly) 03/28/2020 at 07:34 • Filed to: Mowerlopnik

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Does anyone remember the Grillo?

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If you don’t...never mind. It’s Italian. It’s fast. Made curiously. Handles like dream. Insane ergonomics. Engineered like....well...like most Italian things - complicated.

The engine is pure Americana. Briggs and Stratton. Vanguard 16 HP. Well it might be American...perhaps it was assembled there...I don’t know.

What I do know was that it was choked by an Italian. The pathway for the ch oke cable meant it was ridiculously hard to use - very tight. Stupidly tight.

The cable going through the pic is the choke. Right of picture is the choke knob. Which works much like every choke knob in creation. Hard straight section about 3" long into a flexible coiled outer cable, inside is a solid wire. Cheap, simple & functional. Unless someone designs a path that involves right angles.

More of a wrong angle...

Sorting this out involved removing the entire choke cable assembly. The above image was taken by sliding my phone into the chassis with one hand then using my pinkie to take the picture. So undoing that nut up there required trialling three different 14mm spanners, considering a big fucking hammer, having a hand cramp and then loosing most feeling in my left hand due to blood flow issues before it came loose...

Redirecting it required stabbing M’lady in the finger trying to get the cable end and the choke lever talking in a fashionably cramped location surrounded by other lovely things...

So much room for dainty hands...

Plus a bit of back and forth with a robust chassis and its unwillingness to bend to my will. And yet...

Before...

After

Simple stuff but truly fiddly in that wonderful Italian style. Dead set...this thing is built like a brick shithouse but designed like a chocolate teapot. And yet i t’s so endearing...

Suffice to say it works much better now thanks to some extrodinaril y foul language and some graphite powder...

From right to left...in the middle is the original choke cable that my mother somehow destroyed and my late step father attached to the ROPS as some sort of reminder...

Tapas > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 03/28/2020 at 08:52

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“...t his thing is built like a brick shithouse but designed like a chocolate teapot.” - HAH!

Such  magnificent prose has never  been penned before!

pip bip - choose Corrour > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 03/28/2020 at 08:56

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well done

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Tapas 03/28/2020 at 08:58

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Thanks but I’m sure it can be Googled...

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > pip bip - choose Corrour 03/28/2020 at 09:00

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Shoosh.... you'll jinx it!

pip bip - choose Corrour > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 03/28/2020 at 09:17

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>:)

Brighammer > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 03/28/2020 at 09:18

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Wo w that looks remarkably like this, a 4wd ride- on brush mower made in Japan by a company called Canycom. I used to work at a rental yard(that I thought I was gonna own) And we had one of these as well as one made by a company called oreck.

The canycoms ran cables in similar fashion to your Italian one and used a Subaru Robin’s engine . The oreck used a Made in Japan Briggs and Stratton vtwin.

I wish I had my own mow-cart...

shop-teacher > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 03/28/2020 at 11:21

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This is excellent oppo!

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Brighammer 03/28/2020 at 16:53

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Somehow, I’d imagine a Japanese iteration to be more logical! It certainly still looks  mad. I’ll have to do some more research.

Brighammer > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 03/28/2020 at 19:01

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There are certain things that seem well thought out. And others that don’t. There are so many cables activated by linkages that run saftey switches it’s not funny. And on this one, it has a foot control. But the reverse\heel part of the lever is made of thinner steel than the forward part of the pedal. And bends and then you can’t go backwards. So rather than tell my customer to order up a new pedal assembly for $150 I modified it with a bracket that goes between heel pad and main bar . No more bending and twisting.

But these things will go ANYWHERE. This particular unit is AWD and you can lock the rear axle.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Brighammer 03/29/2020 at 06:56

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Is it wrong to want one?

Brighammer > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 03/29/2020 at 08:07

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If it is, I don't want to be right.