The story of my Eclipse 32" Speedway reel mower

What I found in the oil bath! Took me by surprise when I pulled the cover off.



The reproduction paper ID tag temporarily placed.







The next set of photos were of the 'mow off' that I did with my friend Eric at his property which is very beautiful by the way! Here is the video :
The most recent video of it:

Loaded up on the trailer on it's way to Eric's house.

If you happened to catch the Lawn King thread recently, I mentioned there was a surprise comming for the Eclipse.

So, what is this big big surprise you ask?

A SULKY!!! Yes!! An original Eclipse Sulky. Finally found one that is not totally rusted out or missing parts. Had to pass on two already because of it.

A fellow Eclipse buddy put me in touch with somebody he knew of who had one. When he sent me a photo of it, I didn't recognize it at first as being an Eclipse. From my research, I concluded that there were two model Eclipse sulkys made; the big one with the large Speedway sized wheels and also the 453 series with the smaller wheels. The fellow that had it informed that there was indeed a third type made and he sent me a couple of different original Eclipse ads that I have never seen or come across before that featured this exact sulky. Apparently from what he says, it is quite rare. It is called a "ridged ride" and you can see the Eclipse name on the front of it in one of the ads.

So generously, he broke it down and is shipping it one very large box. It will be coming from New Jersey. I felt this was a pretty good deal as large items like this are hard to ship and finding an original Eclipse sulky that is in decent shape is hard to find in itself.

Anyway, I am really looking forward to this and I can't wait to be able to ride behind the Speedway and put some miles on it!

Will keep you guys updated once it arrives with plenty of pictures and some video of course me riding behind it too!
For now, below are two ads that feature the "ridged ride" sulky.

Well, the sulky arrived!! :thThumbsU

I first have to show you the fabulous packaging job the gentleman who I bought it from did to get it here. Props to him because it couldn't have been any better, really. He built a wood crate for all the parts to sit in, put foam protective pads around everything, and then wrapped the crate in a large cardboard box so that it could ship UPS. The shipping ended up turning out to be more than we thought, but oh well. I'm just thankful that I was able to find somebody who was willing to help with shipping and to find a decent, solid sulky.

Anyway, on to the sulky details itself. It is solid and complete aside from being covered with surface rust. One of the rims is not doing too well and has some rot, so it will need to be replaced for a proper restoration someday. It is usable for now however. A sandblasting, repaint or powdercoat will no doubt getting looking new again. The member 'bs23uo', another reel mower enthusiast who knows just about everything there is to know about Eclipse mowers in particular, informed me this specific sulky model was made between 1951-1954 which is definitely a great thing to know.

Here are the packaging pics,






It was sure fun assembling it and attaching to the Speedway for the first time. In fact, I don't believe that the old girl has ever had a sulky behind it before judging by the condition of the hitch where you would normally expect to find the obvious indicator marks. After hopping on it for the first time and getting a feel for the layout, I was immediately glad that I decided to get an original Eclipse made sulky that was built specifically for this application. For example, one from a different manufacture might be a little too tall, or the seat might be too far away from the handle etc making it uncomfortable to operate. Once I sat down on it, it just had that clear feeling that everything is just right like it was meant to be. Once the engine was running and I climbed on, my heart was beating kind of fast wondering what this was going to be like and once I engaged the clutch. Once I did, I immediately began laughing as it reminded me of being on a ride at Disneyland!

What is it like to ride behind the Speedway?

Mr. Toads wild ride anyone? Haha, maybe not that crazy but hilariously fun! I was kind of wondering how the mower would do with the extra weight behind it and if I would need to give it more throttle than usual because of it, but it really didn't act as if I was there at all. I could still idle it all the way down to a crawl, even while going up an incline on grass and it ran the same as it always has before when I would walk behind it. Pretty amazing torque. I would say that it is maybe a little bit harder to keep straight while mowing especially while going over bumps as you don't have quite as much steering control versus when you're walking behind it. Turning it from side to side takes a little getting used to but does not require an abdominal amount of force either. It is no problem at all making extremely sharp turns to the point where you're jackknifed, but the faster it goes, the harder it is to turn which is probably a good thing. When you do want to make those really sharp turns, you have to slow down to a crawl. Take a look at my video and you will see what I mean.

I was a little concerned how it would do going down inclines, but it seems to do alright on the mellower ones. I just have to tell myself to not take it out of gear in those situations because once you do, it immediately speeds up and freewheels giving you a stomach drop feeling. Obviously, when you're mowing and you want to stop it is not a problem because of the resistance of the lawn. Basically the trick to slowing down and coming to a "near stop" on smooth incline is to throttle all the way back to the point where you can count the engine strokes, and then take it out of gear and put your feet down. Now, if only it had a parking brake. All in all when it comes to inclines, I don't think I'd ever take this down something too crazy because you're just asking for trouble.

The next thing that I'm going to do to the mower is raise the handle up a little more. I know this kind of annoys purists but it will not be something that changes the mower in a way that it could not be put back to stock. To be honest, it is just a wee bit cramped when sitting on the sulky and sometimes my knees hit the handle. Also, simply moving the mower around by hand and walking behind it will be MUCH more comfortable by not having to keep my arms stretched all the way down to reach it.


-Video can be watched in better quality if you switch it above the 360p-



^^^, Lol at the name of the company.

These are the wheels that I'm thinking I will use as replacements for the sulky. It requires a 1" splined hub which is a little hard to find, and that's what these are. And, they are split rims so they will be like the originals which I think is pretty important.



I replaced the original u-bolt clamp for the footrest with a new one as it was bent, rusted and just needed to be retired.

Well I finally got around to doing something that I've wanted to do for a long time on this mower which was raising the handle up a bit as I explained earlier in my last update.

The handle has always been a little on the low side for my tastes and especially now how it nearly rests on my legs when I sit on the sulky, it was time. I pondered a few different ways to go about doing this and my main objective was to NOT make it look like it came out of one of those "There, I fixed it" photos if you know what I mean. I bought a couple of short flat stock brackets and mounted the top of each on the bottom hole of either side of the "yoke". I then raised the handle up and ran a second bolt through the brackets and one of the lower holes in the "fork", but did not raise the yoke part above the fork. If I had, it would have just looked stupid and not right. It's a little hard to explain in words how this looks let alone picture, but in the photos you'll see how it all worked. To me it's an acceptable solution for a slightly higher handle without going crazy and throwing some really long ugly brackets on there. Overall, the handle was raised exactly 3" from how it was before. The beginning measurement from the ground to the top of handle was 33 ¼", now it is exactly 36 ¼". Not bad and makes a definite noticeable improvement, especially when sitting on the sulky as my legs do not hit the handle anymore and my arms can be straighter. It's the right height. Absolutely well worth the mod imo and with everything like this that I do to these machines, nothing was changed indefinitely or harmed to the mower itself so it can easily be put back to stock in a couple of minutes. The next little project for this mower will be to make new rubber flaps that replicate the originals (as best that I can) that prevent the grass clippings from going all over your feet, so that will be kind of fun to do sometime in the near future.

I've decided that I think I'm going to restore the sulky come next spring. It really needs some color! I first need to find some new wheels for it though. The ones that I talked about earlier are no longer available anymore and I can't find them anywhere else. The problem is, the hubs on these rims need to be 1" which is a bit of an odd size for rims in this size range as most only come with a ¾" or smaller bore with a bearing. I would have to either shave the axle down (which I don't really want to do) or have the rims bored out somehow, although I'm not sure how that would even work due to the bearing. I have yet to contact Miller Tire, so they may just have something that'll work. Golf cart rims however have a 1" bore, but I really would like it to look as original as possible and not have tires quite that wide. When it comes to paint, I'm thinking that I might use a more faded color shade on it rather than bright so that it would maybe blend in more with the color of the mower and not stand out so much. I don't know. Someday, a long time from now, the mower will get a full restore and at that time the sulky would get repainted too of course, so maybe now just get some color on it that sort of matches the yellow of the mower and wait 'till later on to make her really like shine like new. That's my thinking at least.