Tell me what I have, if you will...

[Very Fine Person]

Hello. I hope that you are well and enjoying life in general.

I probably need to know what model rear-engine Snapper I have, in order to order parts. They usually want to know. But there doesn't seem to be a part number/serial number on this thing anywhere. Maybe the machine was stolen once in its history. Who knows.

I've seen a post like this once before, and the responses were just look, it's there. If that's your position, come on over and show me. Show me. I could be wrong. Show me.

For anyone in a position and temperament to be helpful, what the heck model do I have here, more or less? The distinguishing characteristic seems to be that the deck height lever is vertical, with the detents inside, rather than horizontal with the detents outside and visible. It also has a heel plate that if you lift your feet off of it, it snaps the blade release handle back, that doesn't seem common.

What I want to get is the rubber-tired wheel that runs on the disc inside, to change speed and direction. I haven't deployed this thing yet, because the bottom of the hill is way down there, and if it happens that this baby can't climb up, that would be bad. Probably better to just start out with a new wheel.

Then again, if that part was the same on all of these, the question becomes moot. How long has it been since the last time you heard someone say moot? But if that's the case, tell me and everything will be awesome.

Thank you kindly.

 

[Auto Doc's]

That is approx. a mid 80's Snapper RER, I have one with the same bicycle handle steering, but it came with an 8HP no electric start. Someone had put a 30" cutting deck under it.

Yours is a series 6 from what I can tell in the picture.

Most did have a stamped metal plate mounted to the front of the battery tray area on the left side.

This guy, Jim Jackson has a bunch of detailed videos about these riders:

Snapper series 6 friction drive wheel - Search Videos

www.bing.com

Snapper series 6 friction drive wheel - Search Videos

www.bing.com

 

[slomo]

Guessing at it, looks like a 33" deck. Rear skinny tires look like it should be a 28 or 30" deck.

That mower, that engine, are the best ever made. Your grand kids kids kids will be mowing with that. Clean her up. Turtle Wax the deck. Pull the engine shroud off. Clean the cooling fins. Use Snapper 00 grade grease in the rear diff and chain case. Keep the oil ON the full mark, not under nor over. Use SAE 30w oil in the engine.

Sounds like you need a new driven disk under the deck. Just to let you know, mine pulls my 285lb fat azz, tow behind aerator (80lbs), 8 cinder blocks at 42lbs each up my 5-10 degree yard. Oh and the wife sitting on the blocks at 125lbs. Add that all up.

 

[Very Fine Person]

Thank you. I wasn't exactly able to extract a model number here, but I was able to use Series 6 to wiggle into a big company's page of manuals with exploded diagrams, which gave a part number and the word "unavailable".

A little shocking, but I knew that was unlikely, because loading that number into ebay showed that that part was used by a whole bunch of companies for a whole bunch of different kinds of products. It seems unlikely that there are a lot of variations. It's standard as a light bulb. I probably should look in the machine to see whether the one in there is itself brand new, but if it isn't, I'm apparently well-covered.

 

[Auto Doc's]

This design really came to fame after the movie Forrest Gump came out. There are avid collectors and all kinds of people who became Snapper RER mower "specialist" almost overnight after that movie.

These are some very tough, simple and hard-working little riders.

Yours likely came with an 8HP engine originally and someone upgraded to the bigger 12HP engine, that has been a common conversion through the years.

 

[Very Fine Person]

Well son of a gun. All I thought was that it was a cool-looking mower. And I wanted to avoid looking like just a lazy rich person. My odometer reads 74 and I was always a weakling besides. I think that I've got enough cred to finally take a seat.

 

[hlw49]

Best mower you could put a woman or a child on they won't run their feet into stuff like they would bust the hood on a tractor style mower. Had one and when I sold it it was 30 years old. Still have one sitting in the shop covered up with a bunch of boxes. 28 inch cut with a bagger will pick hickory nuts up off the ground. Simple to work on and you can fix anything on it.

 

[Auto Doc's]

Hi hlw49,

The decks on most of these were known for their high vacuum effect so they worked very well with baggers attached. These are the only mower I have dealt with that actually has add-on bolt on blade lift wings.

The one I have is equipped with an 8HP B&S engine and a 30-inch deck and it is like a "baby bush hog" and will take down and chop up just about anything it can get over.

I need to install a downward exit chute on it because it currently blows a lot of dust and sand even without the lift wings on the blade.

 

[Very Fine Person]

I thought I was buying a cool antique but it's only 40 years old.

 

[Auto Doc's]

Hello VFP,

It's over 25 years old. that makes it a classic for sure.

In the mowing world, that is what is known as a survivor which is somewhat rare. Old Snapper mowers like this one were built with simple construction but durability in mind and that made them so the homeowner could actually work on them and keep them maintained.

When was the last time you saw a rider mower that could be stood up on its tail end so you could change the deck blade?

Newer age mowers being laden with plastics and electronics, they are lucky to ever make 10-15 years.... even with light use. Modern commercial grade mowers are suffering the same fate.

Unfortunately, many old riders like this Snapper were hauled away for absolute stupid (easy to fix) reasons.

The big advantage is that this design is all steel construction and fairly easy to work on. As a bonus, most of the service parts are still available. (For now).