OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Walk Behind Lawn Mower Frames Two Stroke Lawn Mower Frames Victa wheels

As some would know I have a constant battle finding wheels that I believe are up to standard on the mowers I build. One of my problems broken wheel inserts so today I tried this novel idea. I 3/4 filled the wheel with styrene bean bag balls and then topped it off with a strong mix of concrete, I didn't want to fill them with concrete because it may have made them too heavy. Anyway a coat of black paint and they should look like new again and hopefully they won't get broken again like the plastic ones when stones hit them

I just use them without the inserts. They are just cosmetic and don't look bad without them. Why weigh them down?

The wheels look pretty average without them

You can get cement that's more flexible and less likely to crack. I don't know if a thin layer of regular cement like that will stand up to that use.
What about spak filler, no more gaps our the like? So toy have plenty of spare cement lying around to do this with?

Norm, Are you going the The Flintstones look? That is if you guys get the The Flintstones cartoons over there about prehistoric family. I seen yesterday where Fred had a flat and he making his own spare wheel out of a boulder.

I am like Mowerfreak don't know how well they will hold up but that is inventive.

Hi AVB,
Yes we have had the Flinstones out here in the colonies for probably 50 years although this was not in my thinking at the time. I guess I will have to get out and mow a few lawns to see how they stand up. The problem with out Victa wheels is that they are the only mower wheel that uses a 9/16th shaft, all the others use 1/2 inch
Bit of paint, didn't come out as well as I would have liked but certainly looks better that with the insert missing. Put them on the scales, with concrete 740 grams, wheel with plastic insert 320 grams and the original Victa solid rubber wheel 780 grams so my concrete insert ones are not over the top weight wise.

Hi Norm ,MF and AVB,

I was thinking of turning up a flat sheet of 1/16 steel or aluminium as an inner cap and using some
liquid nails to glue it in place but if the concrete ones don't crack up Norm you may have fixed
the wheel problem, I guess fibreglass body filler would also work except it would not be a cost effective
fix


Cheers
Max.

Hi Max,

Yes the steel ring is a good idea but they would need to be laser cut, no big deal, just another cost and then you need them for all the different sized wheels. Not sure how many different ones they made

I was thinking of drilling the centre out of the sheet first then bolting in a big bolt and putting that bolt
in the lathe and machining down the outside diameter Norm ,you would roughly cut the outside circle
with a grinder before using the lathe.

Cheers
Max.

How long does it take for the cement to set fully hard? In that setting, it should hold fine as long as it's fully cured. I was wondering how it compared to the pre 1976 solid rubber 8" wheels in weight, so it's acceptable there. I was thinking you'd leave the white part unpainted. It would fool the eye once it's mounted on the mower.
Are you going to do any front wheels? I imagine that would show more unless you carefully smooth the finish over.

Hi Max, I could do them in the lathe but it is time consuming, but I might give it a try on a set of wheels, nothing to loose.
MF, I will leave the wheels for a couple of weeks so they harden up. I did a set of front wheels last night, the surface looked pretty good when I did them but once they dried over night it ended up with a few imperfections. I might try a wipe of body filler over it. Too much messing around to keep the white, can't loose sight of the fact they are just mower wheels

If only you could find bulk packs of black silicone sealant cartridges, you could fill them with that and get a great rubber like finish.

Ok so it has been 2 weeks since I made these wheel inserts up so now I want to give them a try out to see if the concrete stands up to things hitting it. I just need to find some lawns/grass to mow. Might have to give them a go along the edge of the road where it gets a bit hard for the council contractors to get to maybe on Sunday when nobody is around

You mainly have to see that they won't crack and fall apart just from pushing them around before worrying about getting struck!
I'm sure some mowing of parklands and reserves will show up any faults soon enough.

So Norm, have you tried them yet?
Have you ever transferred good black plastic "doughnuts" to another wheel with success?

Hi MF,
Haven't tried them yet too busy spinning around with all other stuff, can't even get time to put any mowers together, just get the occasional one together. The donuts are easy to change I just don't have enough donuts

Hi MF,
I put a rough PT together yesterday because I have to do a bit of a clean up at a friends place tomorrow that has a kikuyu problem so I put the concrete wheels on it because this will give them a bit of a good workout with stuff being thrown against the inserts. Let you know how they stand up to it. I ended up dropping one of the wheels by accident from about 3 feet and it didn't seem to crack it but you do notice the difference in the weight when lifting the mower on and off the bench

MF,

First test mowing and no sign of them breaking or cracking so that is a good start. I will give them a couple more tries before I can say they are a success but certainly encouraging.

I guess if it's good quality cement it should stand up to that treatment. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, there is a cement mix that was used to repair an internal step in our house that the repairman said is more flexible than regular cement. I must try and find what the stuff is called. I imagine it would work really well for this.

Don't know if it is good quality cement, I just mixed a very strong mix of 50/50 sand/gravel and cement

I'm sure they'll hold as the outer plastic is pretty solid on these things. They will support each other to form the structure. Just don't go jumping it off ramps Dukes of Hazard style.

I have now used these wheels over some fairly rough ground smashing their way through some overgrown kikuyu and so far not a problem so these might be a solution, maybe not the best but is a lot better that no insert at all and I doubt anybody would notice unless they were told

I have to say Norm, thats not the solution i would have thought of, but i cant say i have better one.
be interested to see how they hold up

Not sure what is going to give up first my legs or the wheels

Ok so I'm now going back to see if I can solve this problem. I tried the cement and the right front wheel is the only one that suffered the damage so my next thought is to try ridge tile bonding cement. This stuff is extremely tough and claimed to be flexible so I am going to give it a try and see if it will do the job. I think there is a good possibility it will work fine. Still fill the cavity with styrene beads and a coating of the bonding cement over the top. Then I will have to find some pretty rugged grass area to mow to see how it stacks up. Once the wheels have been used cutting grass they look just like any other second hand Victa wheel with the grass on them.

NormK, don't you have some garbage wheels to get inserts out from to swap over? I guess you don't have that luxury eh?

This solution sounds promising by what you describe.
I presume this stuff is quite cheap.

MF,
I have plenty of garbage wheels but that is what most are garbage, I pull any inserts out as soon as I get any that are any good. I picked up a couple of tubs of the Dunlop stuff so I could repoint all my ridge tiles for $45 I think it id about $37 a tub at Bunnings. If it stands up ok then even if I had to buy a tub it would make about 500 wheels I would think so more than enough to see me out. I would expect to run out of PT's before then

Keep us posted on the wheel saga. We may benefit.