A update on the old Rover. It’s not quite as iconic as DFB’s Victa 18, but I still like my Rover 200 ESX. It’s a lot lighter to push around than today’s heavier push behinds with their safety bars and other ‘keeping you safe from yourself’ devices attached to various parts of the machine. And being a really basic 36 year old mower (had it since new) it’s also a lot easier to fix and repair to.
But it did let me down for the first time in ages the other day. I was half way through the mowing and emptying the catcher when it sort’ve just petered out and stopped from idle. Pulled it through a few times, and absolutely nothing. Didn’t even look like firing. Pulled the plug out and no spark.
Fortunately I bought a spares machine for $20 a few years ago and with no spark figured it was the ignition coil.
Swapped the coil across and also fitted the fan shroud/tinware from the spares machine. The shroud on my machine had ripped its bolt hole and wouldn’t bolt on square, so it rubbed on some of the rotating hardware. Even rubbed it back a bit and gave it a coat of paint! All done in 30 minutes. Simples! And it also looks a little bit cleaner with the fresh paint.
Anyway it’s running as new again and I’m looking forward to another 10 years of trouble free mowing!