[tjbopp]

My name is Tom, I live in Euclid Ohio which is about 15 minutes east of Cleveland. I found my grandfathers old reel mower in the back of my garage a couple years ago when gas got up to $4/gal. I started using it to cut my lawn with. I'm now hooked.
My problem is it is in need of TLC and I have no idea where to start to locate parts. I believe it to be a 1947 Eclipse Model L ?
I pulled it out and cut the grass just yesterday (amazing thing to do here in March in Cleveland) and I noticed the one drive wheel has split and now shows a 1/4" gap in it. I need new hand grips and all the seals are shot. I add oil to the drive wheels constantly.
Hoping to meet up with some nice folks who might be able to help be resurrect this beauty.

 

[Austen]

Cool, another Eclipse enthusiast!

Haha, welcome to MLF!! We're glad to have you here.

Neat mower!! That's really cool you brought one of these old girls back to life again. It would be really neat to see some photos of it if possible! I thought you might like to see the ad below.

Unfortunately, parts are hard to come by, but sometimes they do appear on Ebay once in a while. I would put some want ads out there for the parts you're looking for on Craigslist and also on engineads.com. I have had decent sucess finding odds and ends for these types of machines from both places.

You might actually be able to find replacement tires at a hardware store. I've seen those hardrubber tires before at places like that made for wagons and whatnot, so you might pull one of them off and take it in to some see if you can match it up. I'm sure there some different ones on Ebay and no doubt whatever is in the stores is online and more.

There is a pretty big market out there for handgrips made for Schwinn beach cruiser type bikes. A lot of these handgrips are made to look retro all of which resemble some the originals found on these old mowers as well.

When it comes to the seels, honestly, your best bet in my opinion is going to be making new ones by using the old ones as a template. I have no idea where you would be able to purchase a new set of them unless somebody had an NOS supply out there.

There are a couple of other Eclipse enthusiasts here that know more than I do, so they will likely be chiming in soon!

Thanks for posting!

P.S. you might like to check out this site: http://www.angelfire.com/planet/eclipsereelmowers/

 

[bwdbrn1]

Welcome, glad to have another member who appreciates the old Eclipse mowers!
I have an L myself, and just picked up a couple of their old Zephyr models too, though I can't say that I intend to use them to mow. I also have a Scotts reel that I do use, and can say there's nothing quite like the wicka wicka sound they make when mowing. Don't really know what seals you are talking about. The Model L has adjustable bearings, where you could tighten up the amount of play on the reel. It also has the self sharpening feature on it too.

 

[Mark / Ohio]

:welcome: to the forum from another fellow Ohioan Tom!