I have a Ransomes cylinder mower which probably dates from the 1960s. It's fitted with a small Clinton horizontal shaft air-cooled engine, Model No. A2190 2134, Serial No. 8553954E. This engine is pretty heavily worn - if I take off the cylinder head and press on the piston with my finger I can actually see it wobble to and fro. But the mower is great and I'd like to fix it. Does anyone know of a source of Clinton engine parts in the UK. I suspect I might need a complete new engine because I don't think the cylinder can be separated from the crankcase.
I've got a little more information now. The mower is a Ransomes Marquis
20". I've also found a picture of one on eBay fitted with a 3 hp Briggs and Stratton engine instead of the Clinton. Anyone know of a good source of second hand engines (in reliable order) in the UK?
Thanks for the suggestion. I notice he's got some replacement pistons for Clinton engines, but I'm not sure if that will be enough to fix it. Hopefully I'll be getting the mower out tomorrow and giving it some use to see exactly what work needs doing.
Greetings Chris, A few years ago I stupidly ran my clinton motor too low on oil bending the cam and throwing the rod. Since the block is cast iron it was OK. The cam was easily straightened. I found a new con rod on ebay. But the crank was heavily scored. I set the crankshaft up in the lathe and turned it to clean up. After polishing the crank it was time to see just how much smaller it had gotten. It lost about 1 mm. I could have just machined off the faces of the lower conrod bearing surfaces and re-bored it but there would have been too large of a gap at the split line and oil retention would have been poor. Instead, I bored the con rod about 1mm over and made a split bearing shell out of 660 bronze. This alloy designation refers to a common type of bearing bronze used in the USA. The shells were loctited in the con rod. To keep them tight against the loctited surface I wrapped some tape around the crank throw and clamped the con rod to that overnight. The next day I removed the tape and assembled to motor. It has seen many more hours since the repair. The motor is on a rototiller my Dad bought in 1970. Cylinder and ring wear were negligible. Maybe you can get away with just putting new rings in it. Cheers, Eric R Snow, E T Precision Machine,
Thanks for the message. That's an interesting story. My Clinton engine is certainly an aluminium block and the bore has become slightly oval, but new rings might fix it. I've also discovered that many Ransomes mowers in the UK used a BSA engine, so I might keep an eye out for a used BSA engine, especially as my pull cord starter is a bit dodgy too. It would be fun to fix this mower but fortuntely we have another which can do the job while I'm looking for spares!
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