Grasshopper 1200 age

[jlasater]

I'm starting a project to restore an older Grasshopper that a friend picked up. ID tag shows model 1200, sn 77954. It has a 12HP Kohler, but I haven't seen the tag on that yet.

Can any of you tell me the year of this machine? It appears to be the equivalent of a 1210 from the-mower-shop-inc parts website. The hydro's have independent reservoirs on top instead of the later shared reservoir. This also has what appear to be disk brake parking brakes, but those may have been retrofitted...there are other bogged together mods that I'll be removing.

 

[Tiger Small Engine]

I'm starting a project to restore an older Grasshopper that a friend picked up. ID tag shows model 1200, sn 77954. It has a 12HP Kohler, but I haven't seen the tag on that yet.

Can any of you tell me the year of this machine? It appears to be the equivalent of a 1210 from the-mower-shop-inc parts website. The hydro's have independent reservoirs on top instead of the later shared reservoir. This also has what appear to be disk brake parking brakes, but those may have been retrofitted...there are other bogged together mods that I'll be removing.

A quick Google search for the Grasshopper 1210 you mentioned (12 horsepower), says it was manufactured in the mid 1980s. Why you would “restore” a mid 1980s Grasshopper is the question? It is 40 years old, and it is a Grasshopper, two strikes right off.

 

[jlasater]

Turns out it's a 1975 vintage. Grasshopper was able to provide a manual that closely matches the unit I have, the only difference being that the manual has a heavy duty starter button as opposed to a starter solenoid activated by the key...so I suspect mine is slightly newer. The entire directional and mower deck control system has been completely hacked together and no longer resembles the stock setup...I'll be putting it back. It'll take some fabricating but shouldn't be a big deal.