OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Welcome to Outdoorking Forum HELP Area Introductions Hi from Victoria

Hello everyone, I've been reading this forum quite a bit over the Covid-19 period and decided it would be a good idea to register. I've had a lot of fun finding mowers around the place and fixing them up while work has been slow and the info on here has been invaluable. There's an insane amount of perfectly good machines that get thrown out for hard rubbish! Dad's always been a victa man and I've been doing his mowing recently, so it's been fun reading up on them and learning what goes where etc for when we eventually have to swap the engine to it's third replacement deck (I'll try and find an alloy one!) Cheers.

G'day Helweg,

welcome, what model Victa is it? Can we see piccies?
If they're are tonnes of mowers being dumped, they must be getting vacuumed up by many more eager scroungers then as I rarely come across any.
One time recently I came across two Victas in average condition and within a minute a car pulled up and the driver was asking me if I was taking them -as I was wheeling one to my car! He said ok in a resigned voice.
Another time I disposed of the decrepit remains of a Victa with missing wheels and stripped engine in a quiet street with no though traffic and within a couple of minutes a Commodore station wagon pulled up with the passenger quickly loaded it in. I couldn't believe it.

Hello Helwig, welcome to the forum.

MF, my record for picking up a discarded mower is 30 seconds. The guy was walking back down the driveway and called back to say he was expecting it to go quick, but not 30 seconds after he put it out (victa 148cc vantage if you are wondering).

I put a stuffed Stihl Viking mower with quattro 40 (leaking main lower seal, blowing smoke, knock, etc), gone in 5 minutes. Even a bloody ozito push mower went within 5 minutes. Yet the guy down the road has had an ozito electric mower out for 3 days now - says something about the quality

Hello Mowerfreak, Tyler,

I'll try and snap some shots of the victa tomorrow, both are pretty much identical I think, red and rusted!

Perhaps we're just lucky where we are but I've seen quite a few lately.
I bike around a lot so I get to cover a lot of ground and get through little streets that ordinary traffic wouldn't pass through as much maybe, as well as the time to take in the surrounds and have a good old look.

Love all your street find stories.

Hi Ben


Unfortunately, you will have a flood of them and then not so much. This time of year is about right as the grass gets into full swing (especially couch) and everyone suddenly finds their mower won't start.

Please be careful looking for things on a bike - I know of a 2 guy team who used a bike and van - 1 scouted the curbside collections whilst the other drove the hiace van in relative vicinity. The rider would call when he found something.

Worked fine until the rider went clean over the roof of a falcon when he accidentally ran a (very poorly signposted) stop sign

G'day Ben, it sure is a knowledgeable place here. I've learned heaps already. Enjoy.

You're right Tyler, floods of them and then not so much.
I was lucky the other week though and managed to get a self propelled honda for free off a nice lady on facebook who was getting rid some of her husband's old stuff.
He was done with it on account of not being able to get it started, but thankfully it was just old fuel that needed clearing out.
Runs great now, but there's a bunch of other little issues that Dad and I are slowly working through.
If that's the last score I make this year I'll be pretty happy!


I did say I'd post some (uninteresting) photos of Dad's Victa power torque, so they're attached.

Normally I'd be focused on the Victa but you got THAT for free? Did she have a Mercedes Kompressor model to spare?

Quite a good score Ben

Though I am no fan of bar blades (or plastic mower decks for that matter) but it looks nearly brand new

Excellent work

Shame about the Victa deck - as you say, the only way around it is alloy (though I am retentive and clean underneath with a wire brush and spray with WD40 after each use)

Best one I saw was a one of a similar vintage that the guy bought new in 98 (though with a tecumseh engine) and taken it with him every time the family moved due to work. It had mowed lawn in every state/territory except 2 (tassie and act).

It had rusted through at the handles and lower down around the left mow side, half the paint was gone, throttle cable seized, wheel bearings stuffed, the inner wheel covers popped out (like yours are I see on the left), supertrak wheels treads worn down to nothing, axles flogged out, blade plate nearly worn through

He used every last bit out of the entire mower - his boys ended up using the engine for a go cart of some description as it had a bit of life left in it.


I am not surprised your PT engine has outlasted 3 decks - they are amongst the hardiest engines ever made

Well done there Ben, good score on the Honda. With the Victa bases when I rebuild a mower, because I strip them to a bare bases and repaint them, I clean the underside up all around that left hand corner and paint it with fish oil and hopefully that prolongs their life. The alloy base is better but they do suffer from wear but can be repaired but it is very time consuming because they are usually badly worn around the front axle area. Depending on where in Melb you are I do have a lot of non rusted steel PT bases here if you want one.
Just having a thought, probably a dumb idea, I have alloy Rover bases here that would probably end up in the scrap, I might see if I could put PT's on these, only thing is I would probably have to cut 20mm off the skirt to get the blades down to the correct height. Tell me if this is a dumb idea!!!

Not a dumb idea Norm but maybe unnecessary at this stage? There are a lot of compatible bases with modern B&S motors out there waiting to fail at any minute.

Hi Norm

Not a silly idea at all, we all know Rover made better alloy decks than Victa

However, then you need to sort out dud catcher mesh...

So MF's way is probably easier for now

What of the adapted Talon base you successfully fitted a Powertorque to?

Hi MF, the pair of Talons with PT's fitted are still here, I just haven't had the time to deal with selling mowers since the lockdown started, just got too busy with repairs around the house and still probably have a jobs to keep me going for 2/3 months, then I can get back to fixing mowers

Hi Norm I can't see cutting off 20 mm from the base being very successful ,you would weaken the side skirt as the lower edge is thicker and the axle location would be a problem and then the axles would be dragging on the ground. The Talon mowers sound a better idea. Cheers Max.

Try a Gardeners choice. They seem another decent base let down by it's motor.
Right now I have a decent Tornado base with a defective Briggs. If only I could find a long shaft two stroke.

Hi MF, easy if you had a press what I did with the Talons was press the center of the blade carrier up 20mm and that lowered the blades 20mm. Hi Max I had forgotten about pressing the blade carrier, much better idea than trimming the base down

Hi I think a Rover base with a PT on it would be great I have done a Sanli base with a Side pull. Just need to cut the height bar and space the middle bit out a little to clear the head. It died when the crankshaft broke because I lengthened it by a long nut and stud Pressing the blade holder a lot better idea. Jeff

Except those wheels that are a pig to change with those stupid push on ring clips down the bore of the wheel centre. You'd want one with good wheels all round.

And then again you have the standard Rover catcher screen problem, no idea how many of those I have repaired. I had to buy perforated sheet so I could make new screens. Problem is the screens will outlast the mowers and nobody will ever appreciate the time and effort I put into those screens unless they know how crap the original ones were