K & K Mower Bar and Snowplow

One of many pieces of aftermarket agricultural equipment designed in the 1940's for use with Universal Jeeps, the K and K Mower Bar was produced in Denver, Colorado. See a photo of Todd Kerzic's CJ-2A with K & K mower on The CJ2A Page.

K & K Manufacturing was at the same address as Kurland Motors in Denver. Considering this was roughly the same time frame, the "K" most likely indicated some affiliation with the Kurland family. (The firm is listed variously in the literature as K and K, K & K, or simply KK.)

Glenn Byron scanned the K & K pages from the Willys Overland Equipment Book (right), a catalogue of aftermarket equipment available through Willys dealers:

• Page 1 -- "At the same time the mower bar is operating from the center power take-off on the Jeep, the rear power take-off can be used to operate a side rake or loader."
• Page 2 -- "equipped with a safety break-away that automatically breaks upon contact with an obstruction, and at the same time an electric switch cuts out the ignition."

The Willys Overland Equipment Book also included the K &K Minute Snow Blade, a "lighter version of the bulldozer blade." The assembly weighed 300 pounds, and could be raised with a hand pump on the dashboard.

• Page 1 -- "The Minute Snow Blade takes 2 minutes to intall and 1 minute to remove."
• Page 2 -- "Hydraulic tube can extend through windshield or out the side of the 'Jeep'."

Glenn previously scanned all of the pages of the Mower Bar installation and operation manual, large enough to read the small print (200K JPEG's):

• Page 1 -- Photo of bar lowered
• Page 2 -- Detail illustrations of mechanism
• Page 3 -- Installation: loose bolt list
• Page 4 -- Installation Steps 1-6
• Page 5 -- Installation Steps 6A-8
• Page 6 -- Installation Steps 9-12
• Page 7 -- Installation Steps 13-15
• Page 8 -- Installation: Overload Springs & Grass Shields
• Page 9 -- Operating Instructions
• Page 10 -- Lubrication Instructions
• Page 11 -- Photos

Glenn comments, "It is interesting that supposedly no holes need to be drilled in the Jeep to mount this mower (except the grass shields). Also, that cut-out switch must be something where you have to grind the starter to rehitch the ignition."
 

Stuart Lovelady sent this photo of an auxiliary spring on his 1954 CJ-3B which is probably the overload spring seen on Page 8 above.

Stuart says, "I was under my 54 3B recently and noticed this interesting doo-hickey. What would you call this springy thingy? It doesn't appear to be a helper spring in the common sense. BTW, it's only on the driver's side.

"My first thought was that it's designed to dump me into the passenger's lap when I hit a bump (useful on first dates). Doc Vern thinks it's there to support something heavy on the left side, like a sickle bar mower, but I think holding up my oversize posterior is a more logical explanation..."

Thanks to Glenn Byron, Karl Russell and Stuart Lovelady. -- Derek Redmond

Also on The CJ3B Page, see information on 1950's agricultural equipment including a rear-mount mower bar, on the near-mint Gray CJ-3A, and see background on CJ-3B Farm Jeeps.

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