Qualcast Classic Petrol 35S

I’ve had my machine for 10 years now and my wife wonders why I keep bothering with it as it spends more time being fixed than mowing the lawn. In the last 5 years I can count on one hand the amount of times I have finished mowing and nothing has needed adjusting or broken.

I’ve replaced every cog, cable, belt and other miscellaneous plastic parts multiple times. It has never run smoothly from day one, the engine doesn’t have the power to run at low revs and increasing the revs means you have to run behind it. The 50+ year old Suffolk Punch which sits beside it still works and has had basically nothing changed other than the fuel switch and is still a delight to use.

The real icing in the cake is the grass box design. Who thought it would be a good idea to have a plastic grass box sat in a flexible metal frame which vibrates and bends and causes the grass box to pop out of place almost immediately? I’ve tried several grass boxes and carriers and none of them have worked so ended up drilling holes and making a latch mechanism to secure it.

I won’t go on about the cogs either as it’s been mentioned before. Once they break, and they will as soon as you hit a tree root or long grass, they are a pain to replace and require some basic mechanic skills

So if you pick one of these up second hand be prepared for some serious diy maintenance and a lot of time scouring the jungle website and evil bay for spares.

Right where do I start?

Isembard Kingdom Brunel would be turning in his grave at the build quality of this infernal pile of excreta!

Basically the charlatans that came up with it, had the idea of utilising a multi way cassette system, which in theory works well, allowing scarifying and other facilities, but in reality they used plastic gears and laughed all the way to the bank at those unfortunate souls who bought it at however multiple hundreds of pounds, as this is the weak spot that always goes first.

Save your money people. Buy a 30 quid qualcast pre Qx system Suffolk Punch from flea bay and do it up. You'll have far more fun, it's a dedicated machine made from quality British parts in the era from when we had an empire, and does exactly what it says on the tin as it uses a drive chain and toothed belt, not a set of flimsly god awful plastic gears!

engine runs fine but I have had to change 4 pink gears in the last 2 cuts now the big white one has broken any ideas????

HAD IT FOR NINE YEARS, AND IT STILL STARTS FIRST PULL EVERY TIME. hAD TO REPLACE THE FIXED BLADE (STONES ON OLD LAWN) HAND THROTTLE UNIT IS A LITTLE EXPOSED AND CRACKED WHEN KNOCKED, REPAIRED WITH ARELDITE. AND I FINED THE POWERED WALKING SPEED JUST A LITTLE FAST, SO PUSH IT WITH VERY LITTLE EFFORT.

The engine is made in Italy,the carb has been through an ultrasonic tank twice,blown out with an air line,oil changed,plug cleaned and set.It still surges,any ideas please

This is an excellent machine I bbought it second hans a couple of years ago and have have had only a couple of breakdowns ie belt springs cables fraying and the uasual gearwheels breaking.

However I have had quite a problem with starting ie it nearly pulls my shoulder out when I try to pull the starter my wike has to put her foot on the roller otherwise I lift it off the floor.However it does start after a few pulls. I was wondering if anyone can give me some advise on how to solve this problem I would be very grateful.

This is a great machine for the money.

Mine is a few years old now and has taken some punishment.

Engine speed 'hunts' but suspect a full service will fix that - It has only ever had two oil changes and is still using original air filter and spark plug.

I have needed two pink cogs so far but these are very cheap and designed to break to save the rest of the machine. Both times mine were wrecked by running over things that weren't supposed to be cut(a dog bone and a stone). - You need to keep spares unless you have a repair place nearby as it is game over once it's gone.

I have now have an issue with the bearing in the QX cassette which causes cylinder to drop by about 1mm and hit bottom blade. New cassette is £130plus, but bearings £2 each online so looks like I'll be pulling the cassette apart tomorrow to make sure I order right parts.

I got the 35s Cylinder lawn mower in 2005. Also got the scarifier at the same time. Great little machine. Starts by the second or third pull. Never let me down. After SIX years of ownership I have only just had to replace the PINK plastic cog. Cost of said cog £7.25. Job sorted. I mow lawns for a living on machines MUCH larger than this. So maybe it's not the fault of the mower, but the person who uses it.

I agree with then previous review that the pink cog is useless. I have to replace it every year. I had not problems for the first few years but I am fairly certain that I had a white cog then, albeit still plastic. Anyway, it has gotten to the point where I have actually been considering manufacturing cogs of my own. The aluminium ring that the cog runs against is not great either. The question is: Most other petrol cylinder mowers bear a striking resemblance to the Qualcast 35s so if I decide to buy say an ATCO or a Klippo will I find the pink cog inside them as well? Does anyone know?

The makers of this machine are absolute geniuses.

Let me explain why, you may think what you have just shelled 300+ quid for is a lawn mower...oh it certainly looks, feels, smells and even if you are lucky for five minutes acts like a lawnmower too. You then after covering the distance of what say an olympic standard hedgehog would do in a minute, realise that it is infact a money printing machine for qualcast.

Why?

Because inside it is a cog, an infernal pink cog, that is made up of the most flimsy plastic that must be made of melted down plastc bags dyed pink and is so brittle that should you cough near them the sound wave will snap one of the cogs clean off.

These little beauties cost £10 each and last for the distance a toddler could throw an olympic discus. I even enquired as to why these things where deliberately designed to fail if say you ran over an atom on a smooth surface like a skating rink, and was told it was to stop the engine breaking should you run over a rock. Complete, total, and utter nonesense, as our previous qualcast mower that we had had for some twenty plus years previously, with it only going wrong once every five years perhaps, functioned perfectly well with properly made metal cogs.

So in summary, if you like a bit of mechanics but not actually mowing the lawn and your surname happens to be 'de Rothschild' or 'Rockefeller' then I would thoroughly recommend this contraption too you.