Moz All Mowers

Here's the copy from the following Moz-All advertisement intended to entice new dealers to carry these commercial mowers.
*****copy follows*****
Announcing The NEW 1950 SELF PROPELLED MOZ-ALL
Sell One Machine for ALL Mowing Jobs

CUTS WEEDS . . . With the blade guard removed, Moz-All is a powerful weed cutter.
Cuts weeds higher than your head. Sails thru thick, tangled grass.
Platform bends weeds over, blade snips them off, then pulverizes them.
Ideal for eliminating weeds from under fences, In orchards, and overgrown lots.

MOWS LAWNS . . . Moz-All is a highly efficient lawn mower.
Whirling blade sucks grass up, gives it a smooth, even cut.
Clippings are chopped into fine beneficial mulch and distributed evenly over the ground.
Eliminates raking of clippings. One to three inch cut.

TRIMS UP CLOSE . . . Moz-All trims close enough to eliminate hand trimming.
Cuts right up to walls, around poles, next to sidewalks.
Trims near flowers and bushes. Highly maneuverable.

MOZ-ALL Features That Move Money in your Cash Register
1 xxxxxxxxxxx Arrow points to capstan wheel driver
2 xxxxxxxxxxx Arrow points to handle control lever
3 xxxxxxxxxxx Arrow points to removable blade guard
4 xxxxxxxxxxx Arrow points to vertical shaft bearings
5 xxxxxxxxxxx Arrow points to movable belt pulley drive
6 xxxxxxxxxxx Arrow points to rear wheel


FREE SALES HELPS . . .
Write Today about the xxxphats MOZ-ALL program
WIND-KING ELECTRIC MFG. CO. dept 11250 MERRILL, IOWA
*****end copy******

Observe how the front is curved approaching the widest deck dimension. Unlike most mowers, you could gently and continuously push any Moz-All into fences while mowing along them without snagging on projections like unwanted volunteer trees which might grow along your fence line. If the side skirt were attached to the deck, the contact would just guide the mower outward enough to rub along the obstruction's edge. But if you removed the side skirt and used it in its "weed mower" mode instead of using it in its "mulcher mower" mode, the blade would chop off small trees while making lots of noise. The engine's drive shaft was protected from these impact loads by the twisted belt drive connection. Moving parts were fitted with grease zerks and even after 2000 hours, the rear wheels did not wobble. I expected stability might be a problem, but it was not. It was not more prone to scalping than other mowers. These were popular choices by city parks departments, gas & electric companies and other long-duty cycle users.

I've read that the first mulching mowers appeared in the early 1960s, and that Bolens claimed to make the first mulching mower in 1961. Obviously this 1950 Moz-All true mulching mower must not have existed in the same universe as them. Or maybe these revisionist historians are only talking about the "mulching mower" description, as distinguished from a mower that merely mulches. I think that's called a distinction without a difference. :thThumbsU Another advertising writer's victory.

While this advertisment lists Merrill, Iowa as the manufacturer site, I bought one without engine which lists Hull, Iowa as the manufacturer's site. On-line references to this excellent mower line also mention Sioux City, Iowa, a Nebraska town and Florida as manufacturing sites. I don't know why that is true. Perhaps the cast aluminum decks and other parts were sold by some maker as kits which could be assembled in little manufacturing sites. That's just speculation.

I want to repower the Moz-All I purchased without an engine. I think it was originally fitted with an engine with about 6 horsepower rating. Bear in mind, that both electric and gasoline motor & engine ratings have probably changed since the 1950s. If you're trying to replace a heavy duty 3 horsepower rated electric motor from that period with a currently produced unit, you often have to go to about a 5 horsepower rated motor to just pull the load. I've been told that same can be true of older gas engines verses currently produced engines. The difference is "paper horsepower" made of paper horses. I tried to fit a recent Kawasaki 7 horsepower rated horizontal shaft motor onto the Moz-All, but the Kawasaki is physically too large and the Moz-All's deck motor-mount bolt slots are for 3 1/8" wide by 6 1/2" long bolt patern engines, which is too small for that Kawasaki's engine. Thoughts of retro fitting a DuraForce Lawn-Boy engine to it which would require horizontal crankshaft mounting and altered carb appeal to my sense of the joyous absurdities in life.
John

Here's a 1957 advertisement illustrating Moz-All mowers being used in modes which few if any mowers available today, or at any time in the past, can or could support.

The large rear wheels were capstan-roller driven which gave sufficient "bite" to pull the mower along quite well so long as the capstans didn't get wet. One person with whom I spoke who used these mowers a lot near their Hull, Iowa factory described a common field practice when those capstans became worn and too smooth to get a great bite against the mower's rear rubber tires. They unscrewed the capstans, then ran a few lines of electric welding atop the projecting capstan driver bars to restore their size. Then they would "dress them down" reforming a larger constant diameter with nice sharp trailing edges that would restore their grip against the rubber driving tires. I've observed that 50-year old rubber tires are not as elastic as they were when they were new, so while they self-propel well enough for walk-behind use with old original tires, it would not surprise me if replacing them with new softer tires is necessary to restore the capstans' ability to pull an operator sitting on a sulky wagon seat. Someday I may try that experiment. I don't expect to ever find an original Moz-All sulky, but the illustration provides sufficient information to recreate a sufficiently workable approximation. When this configuration was being used to pull a rider-operator sitting on a sulky wagon seat, converting it into an early rider, part of the rider's weight was transferred onto the driving wheels. That additional driving wheel load would help minimize tire slippage against the ground.

Observe the lower illustration shows a Moz-All being used WITHOUT its removable side shield, which converted it into a highly-effective weed mower. So long as you cut tall weeds in the direction which ejected away from the remaining weeds, this performed VERY well. If the mowing circumstance permitted you to mow in progressive passes from the outside toward the center of an area, always ejecting toward the outside, that worked well. But if you had to mow back and forth with alternate passes ejecting toward the uncut weeds, that always-outward-ejecting flow could not be maintained and the inward-ejected debris from the return pass made cutting the next outward-ejecting pass more difficult.

The single-front caster wheel was clearly easier to steer than fixed axle double-front wheel configurations which require the operator to either lift or skid those fixed-steering front wheels to the side to perform turns. While this single front caster wheel advantage is trivial on light-weight machines, as machine weight increases, that super-easy steering advantage becomes more important. Just as an experiment, you can steer a self-propelled Moz-All with a short trailing rope. Just gently pull the rear in the opposite direction from the intended turn and the front caster wheel steers as you direct it with no skidding or lifting.

Surely there must be other 3-wheel mower owners. So far I've found and bought a 20" and a 22" Moz-All for my amusement and occasional use. As their decks are aluminum castings, they don't rust into unusable trash as was sadly common of many competing machines. Grease zerks on all bearings also allow these machines to be exceptionally durable if normally maintained. I've been amused when reading bogus claims that mulching is a recent decade's strategy. Moz-Alls were being actively promoted as mulchers over 60 years ago. You can see that both in the 1949 advertisement within the previous post and above and in this 1957 advertisement. What other mower allowed use as walk-behind, rider, great weed cutter and mulcher? The set of competitors may contain a few candidates. But so far as I know, that set is empty.
John

Yazooman said:

Anyone heard of a MOZ ALL mower? Someone pmed me about info but i never heard of one.

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I have one that I’m refurbishing now. I wish I could find an old one to get a few parts from.