Detroit Harvester Mower

[super99]

A friend has a 8N ford with a mid mount sickle mower. The tag says Detroit Harvester, Detroit, Michigan. He wants to know about the company, was it part of Ford or some other company? Did they make other machines besides mowers? Where to go for parts? Will universal guards that you get at farm supply stores fit? I'll try to get over there and get some pictures this weekend. Thanks, Chris

 

[Ultradog MN]

I don't know who Detroit Harvester was but they built a lot of the Dearborn branded mowers for Ford. Usually they had both DH and Dearborn tags on them.
All of the old Dearborn sickle mowers use the same knives, guards and ledger plates as the later Ford branded mowers such as the Ford 501 etc.
The Dearborn mowers worked good but they took half a day to install. There are several special brackets and links required to install them on your 3 point all of which are rather hard to find and pricey when you do. If he doesn't have all the brackets, etc I would suggest he not spend a lot of money on his as he could find a better 501 for less $.
For reasons that would take a whole page to explain I can't post a link to the site in the picture. Go there and click on manuals. A great fellow named Ed Gooding has original manuals for those mowers there.

 

[Tim(nj)]

Detroit Harvester turned into Dura-Corp sometime in the early 60s, they were producing Roto-Tiller brand roto-tillers during that time, but what happened to them after that I know not.