First, Honda bosses are on a parallel shaft, driven by a key. To remove them you back off the center bolt about three turns and use a gear puller to move the boss a millimetre or so. Then remove the center bolt and substitute any old bolt of small enough diameter to just fit inside the crankshaft thread, about 25 mm longer than the original center bolt. Use that to pull the boss off another 20 mm, then you should be able to pull it off the rest of the way by hand. It is helpful to drill an impression in the center of the head of the old bolt, to locate the draw screw of the puller.
I don't know of a cheap place to buy decent pullers. I'd probably take a look at speed shops and Bunnings.
Genuine Hondas can normally be set up in either of two ways: with a boss, blade plate and swing-out blades, or a different boss, mounting adaptors, and bar blade. The crankshaft extension and chassis will accept either. The blade plate kit is specifically Australian, so you won't find it on imported models, but for 19 or 21" models, the Australian kit will fit straight on. My favourite Honda came with a bar blade but it didn't take long to realise that was an awful idea: lousy cutting, lousy draft into the catcher, unsafe, and a pain in the backside to keep sharpening the bar blade. I collected the bits of the Australian kit from ebay and scrap mowers, and fitted it to my imported mower - IMO, a huge improvement. I give no thanks at all to Honda Australia for their design of mower bases, but their blade kit is vastly better than a bar blade.
I have no idea how Victa will have set up that hybrid machine. They may have used a blade plate of their own, with a different offset from the Honda ones.
Last edited by grumpy; 03/01/14 08:09 PM. Reason: Add detail
