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1952 Jacobsen Brush & Field Mower?

3147 Views 5 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  2tawl
This is a local auction find I picked up last week.I think it is a Jacobsen as it has orange paint under the green.The deck has mounts for a front catcher.No tags,nothing on the mower or frame.I browsed a Jacobsen website and I think this unit is similar to an estate mower with the grass/brush catching brackets on the deck.This unit probably had a sulky trailer by looking at the low slung handle setup & a hitch at the back of the frame.It has an AKNS Wisconsin engine.Called Wisconsin Motors & they said they didn't know about this model.Ran the serial # thru Wisconsin Motors website & it is a January 1952 motor w/no model designation.I started on it yesterday by cleaning the sediment bowl, plug,adding a boot to the magneto wire and working on the Tillotson glass sediment bowl & the needle valve shaft which was bent.I managed to straighten the needle valve shaft carefully if you can imagine that.The WICO mag is hot one as we spun the crank and it about knocked me over when I was holding the plug(the hands on approach let's you know if there is spark).Does anyone out there know about this AKNS engine with 2 7/8"" stroke and 2 3/4" bore? hp rating? Mower Name?

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Very heavy duty looking machine you got there! Couldn't tell you if it's a Jacobsen or not, but you might be able to figure something out through this site.

Hit & Miss Model's Jacobsen serial number lookup for products made before 1975
Cool!! :cool:

Wonder if it might have been something Bolens sold? Although I think most of the main manufactures were pretty good putting a name on things back then.

City here used something like that many years ago for mowing around the creeks. But I think they were Gravely or maybe Toro as they were red. But they like yours did not have a hood with a name on the side either. I don't recall John Deere making walk behinds back then.

It does have the Jacobsen style disc blades.
Very cool machine and thanks for sharing it! I don't however believe it to be a Jacobsen though.

Like Mark mentioned, it could be a Bolens.
Hmmm.

I never thought about a Gravely or a Bolens.

I went to the Jacobsen website suggested by Mark.

Only problem I have at this point is: no serial number.

Some JD nut must have wanted to match up his colors by painting the unit green and yellow as there is definitely orange paint under the green and yellow paint in various places.

I called back to Wisconsin Motors and talked to Technician/Engineer Dan Holbrook yesterday about the AKNS designation and he said the engine is an AKN with some type of a modification,therefore the "S" add on.

Dan reccomended a fellow in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan who is retired but would be willing to talk shop and tell me what he knows about the "S" designation.

Haven't called the Upper fellow yet but plan to do so in the next few days.

I want to look at the drive train and see if there is any type of serial number or numbers in general.

I know I have to look at the drive as I am unable to put the drive train in neutral at this point.

As Mark indicated, this is a heavy duty unit.

It took 4 of us to get it in the back of a pickup and 3 of us to unload it.

Darn thing must weigh close to 400 lbs.

Thanks to all.

Steve-2tawl
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Just an update,

Spent some time on this machine last weekend cleaning the carburetor,sediment bowl,fuel tank,oil breather and replacing the spark plug.

I know we had spark as there is one hot magneto on the engine with plent of juice coming out.

Probably all for naught as we had a problem getting the Wisconsin AKNS/6.2 hp to fire.

We are fairly certian the rings and/or the valves need replaced as fuel was not rising to the spark plug.

Lack of compression was noted after we removed the drive belts on the mower end and then we could hear air escaping from the crank case breather when we truned the fly wheel by hand.

No compression, no vaccum and then no fuel to the plug.

Not good news.

The Wisonsin engine fellow from Michigan called me back and we talked about the "S" designation on the AKNS engine.

Typically, the "S" designation is for an engine with an electric starter, but this engine does not have an electric starter.

I am fairly certian the engine was painted black originally after looking at the oil breather when clenaing it.

The oil breather's base paint is black under the green.

Also, I went to the Jacobsen site reccomended by bwdbrn1 and scrolled down the list of early Jacobsen power equipment names of mowers and took a hard look at a unit named Heavy Duty Twin 32" and Heavy Duty Twin 32"-2 Speed.

The mower deck measures 32 1/2" wide x 19" deep and there are twin cutter blades under the deck.

I am still unable to find a serial number to see if this name matches up.

So, at this point, I am assuming this mower is a Jacobsen Heavy Duty Twin 32".

Steve-2tawl
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