Who knows billy goat vacuums?

D

dodge trucker

Tractorologist
Senior Member
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Leaf season is among us again (bah humbug) and while out camping I found a guy that has a billy goat KD50 for sale in good shape for what seems reasonable, but the bag it has with it has a bad zipper. Have looked around google and can't find this exact model listed any where. Found some "close" to this model but not this exact one. Am I seeing things right that there is more than one part number of bag that would fit/work for this model? Looks like there's a hard bottom version and a fully fabric version that fit models that are "close" in model number.
I haven't bought it yet, wanted to see what a bag would set me back first and how tough it was to find one.
 
Not familiar with bill goat but a few other I seen used either Velcro or buckle straps to close things up. Might give you some ideas if you can't fix the zipper. Of course you'd have to overlap the canvas a little to make these work.

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I believe its Cyclone Rake that uses Velcro to open and close the bag.
 
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About any shoe repair shop can replace that zipper. At least in this are they are still referred to as "Shoe Repair Shops" but they usually go much further into the repair end. New zippers in a common repair.
 
I had planned to try and get the bag that comes with it fixed eventually, for a spare, but I dunno, worse case or whatever, sewing person can't get to it for a while something like that... Want to know that I can get one if I wind up having to.
I used to have an mtd branded machine that was similar, biggest difference was that it had a chintzy plastic snout that liked to get hung up on anything and everything, snout was a thin plastic that wasn't very sturdy and it was a different design, had a horizontal engine this one has a vertical shaft engine. That mtd also I bought new. I had to replace the bag on that one while I had it, too. It's final demise was rolling out of a pickup truck at speed. I pulled the engine and scrapped the rest of the machine after that. With that one I got a frisbee looking disc, I could replace the snout with, then rotate the housing and use it as a parking lot blower or wind-rower
 
well, I got it for the price I had hoped. has a "big block" 5hp Briggs vertical much like the one on my Ransomes/Bobcat push mower.
Bag is worse than I remember having seen it a few days earlier. has holes in it besides the bad zipper that I missed on 1st looking at it.
so I have been searching Google and Ebay, seemed like there were around 10 choices of replacement bag. but not to be.
they had a "Rental Duty" bag, a "hard bottom" bag, a standard felt bag and according to the guy at the factory (I did find a 1-800 number for their tech support) a nylon mesh bag that would make for a real dusty operating experience when doing dry leaves or parking lots, at one time.
The info I came across, there were many that said fits all KD models" but not to be. somewhere in the mid 90s they redesigned the handle and put a big zigzag in it, the bags for the zigzag handle version won't work on the straight handle earlier ones... but Google, Amazon, Ebay didn't give much input on bag A supersedes bag B and C sort of thing.....
I googled "find a dealer" for Billy goat and found that the place 3 miles from me was a dealer.... though they don't have a single Billy goat machine in the showroom.... they were able to order me one though, I was gonna get the "rental duty" bag after having talked to the BillyGoat tech guy til the local place told me they were backordered then that it superseded to the "standard felt bag" anyway. so I ordered one from the place 3 miles from home

that place is hard to figure..... sometimes, they are the same price/even a bit cheaper than Ebay..... like in this case
but when I needed points and condenser last weekend for a '66 Briggs engine I went ahead and paid their ransom, then came home to look on Ebay later that day, to find out that the most expensive choice for the same points and condenser on Ebay, was still 1/2 the price I paid the local place. (I paid $40 for that set of points and condenser to the local place)

Im gonna keep watch out there for a "steal" on a spare bag for it on Ebay in the non peak leaf season....
 
Well I was looking elsewhere online for something completely unrelated today and got a whiff of something that stirred curiosity about this machine that I just got
As it turns out billy goat sold out to Briggs and Stratton back in 2015.... Might explain some of the confusion about what parts fit/don't fit, lack of supersede info and such... My machine comes from the "good old days" of the original company, not from the new fangled remnants of it. Strange as mine has a Briggs engine it, it seems most used machinesI see advertised on places like CL and ebay have either Honduh or tecumseh engines on them with a few Briggs engines scattered within.
And explains how the place 3 miles down the road was listed as my closest billy goat dealer didn't have a single sign saying so it single piece of BG equipment on the floor.
And how confused they seemed when I went in there looking for a bag for it.
They are Briggs authorized dealers so I guess that means they are also "dealers" for any brand that Briggs has swallowed up, either by the other company's association with Briggs, or by default...
 
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