Next hairbrain idea ... anyone know about hydraulics?

[therecklessengineer]

Funny...I've got an almost identical one from an old Atco that I used to cut my grandmother's lawn with when I was very small.

I think you might be right with the wires.

Does it work?

Do you know how to wire it up?

Do you want to sell it?

It did when it came off the mower some 10 years ago. And it can't be that hard.

I've just donated it to my local makerspace - I'll check it's still there and not been grabbed for some other project.

[therecklessengineer]

There are some quite nice 12-24v DC motor controllers on Aliexpress, that give forward and reverse along with speed control and are not too expensive.

I looked at electric bike motors ... semi reasonable prices but most, if not all, are 48v.

Assuming you're powering this thing from a car alternator then you can just adjust the field manually by varying the current into it. That'll comfortably give you 0-50V ish. You'll just need a switch to reverse polarity to make it go backwards. No speed controller necessary.

[Julian]

[Jamesrl]

I can't see where you'd put the pedals.