In the past previous thread, I mentioned about the needle lever. Now I would like to share a video of how this new prototype is installed and what's the benefits of having this lever and the Pros and Cons.
Pros: 1. Surely pulls the metal needle from sticking into the brass seat regardless of condition when float drops of when fuel level drops. 2. Ultimate solution to keep the viton tip needle as it is and not to compromised the hardness and sealing ability. 3. Will secure the needle in place without holding the float of worying in loosing or dropping the needle on the grass while servicing the carby.
Cons: 1. Not suitable for older plastic needle. 2. A bit tricky to install.
The good news is I able to convince the manufacturer to properly prototype the design and manufacture the part. Making the progressive die tooling is very expensive and the deal was I don't hold a patent the the manufacture is free to sell the product to other customers worldwide. I don't have much benefit but only the pride to be part of this Victa improvement and able to sell my design.
I would like to hear your comments and suggestions. You can see the video below.
Hi CM, You won me if Victa had done these couple of little things to the carby most of the problems would not have arisen. Had another mower back just yesterday with a stuck needle. Well done in pushing on with this idea I congratulate you. Hope it doesn't put you too far out of pocket, not sure how many of the 2 strokes are going to be around in the next few years and once fixed with this spring they will probably be kept forever so it is hard to judge how many to order. Probably have to order 5/10,000? This is the problem to get them at a competive price or a price you can sell them at.
Like the idea Carbymaster, will definitely be an improvement.
Had a stuck needle on my Vortex Mustang on sunday - my usual G4/Lm starting procedure of tapping on the top of the carby a few times can't be done due to the cowl design
Thanks Tyler and NormK for your insight. Just an update of the progress of this design and production. Below is our conversation with the manufacturer.
14 Oct 2021 8:54pm (Message Received) - For Victa needle valve, it is not available for so far. We found it is difficult to put the needle into the hole of cap when the needle is pre-assembleed on the lever fork. We are making the new design for it.
24 Oct 2021 11:44pm (Message Sent) - Thanks for making the prototype. It is a bit tricky to put the needle lever into the seat when pre-assembled. Please see attached short video clip to demonstrate how easy to install the lever.
26 Oct 2021 5:05am (Message Received) - Thanks for your video, we will check it again. We guess the reason you did it easier to install the lever is probably due to the thickness of the material you used. Please see attached photo of our CAD design.
26 Oct 2021 8:20am (Message Sent) - That was exactly my first concept but I disregard that design due to lateral movement of the lever which pushes the needle agains the wall. And advice them to redesign as shown on my short video clip.
26 Oct 2021 4:17pm (Message Received) - Thanks for your advice. We will go back to your design for the Victa needle lever, as we realized the float could not be a freely falling body with our design.
27 Oct 2021 8:38pm (Message Sent) - Thanks for the approval of my design.
16 Sep 2021 5:01pm (Message Received) - For the Victa lever, we are making the new tooling. We hope it can be completed at the end of this year.
Thanks everyone for following this thread and supporting this idea. Hope this improvement we to put this LM/G4 leaking issue to an end. We all love VICTA 2-Stroke.
Please leave a comment and I would like to hear everyone's thought.
I understand your concern regarding needle sticking. Changing the hardness of the viton will also compromise the sealing property of needle valve. There's always a trade off. We have address the leaking issue and now we come up a good solution to address sticking issue. These two combination is the best solution. If the viton still have the leaking issue means it's not the viton. It is the seat that has wear on its surface. I have seen this wear using inspection microscope and I can post the image on ODK. Good thing is we have an update from the manufacturer of the Victa needle lever.
17 Feb 2022 4:58pm (Message Received) - About the Victa needle lever, we finished the wire-cutting of tooling, but need assembly, adjusting and correction. i will let you know once we have the sample.
Surely, you will appreciate this little fellow once we have it. I can send you FREE sample to try.
Hi CM, I like your work, but what I would really like is a float needle that works as well as any float needle in any other machine. The Victa design must take the cake for the worst ever float needle setup ever designed. The Viton tips are much better but still by far the worst ever float needle setup.
Finally from concept to final product has arrived. I have received few final sample float levers from the manufacturer. This need testing and I would like to nominate the following who followed this thread and my previous thread back in 2019 throughout the development of the float lever to try.
You will get 3 FREE samples each to try. Please PM me:
Hi Joel, I have received the float needle springs thank you very much and all the work you have done on these to get the carbys to work properly I am picking up another 30 motors in the next few days so that should give me plenty to try out Have you worked out a price yet. I haven't decided if I will fit them on every needle or just the ones I have problems with Once again thanks for your efforts. Cheers Norm
I also have just received an envelope from you , thanks for the needle and 3 levers in the sponge ,I can try that soon as I have a lawn that needs cutting now .
Thanks Norm, Max and advance thanks to Tyler, Speedy and Mowerfreak, you guys will also receive your sample levers soon. Only Converse and Jeff didn't PM me. It's my pleasure and honour to be part of this Victa carburetor solution. I hope I won't be forgoten for the Victa 2-Stroke inthusiast for this small contributions. As we knew there slight difference on the genuine early G4 and late model LM primer cap which is almost unnoticeable but it does affect the fitting of this new lever. The early model is our reference of our primer cap which has 2.55mm float post or pivot diameter where the late model has 2.68mm diameter which a bit tight for the new lever to fit. Just a heads up if you wonder the lever is bit tight when fitted. You may sanding the post to 2.55mm-2.6mm instead of expanding the diameter of the new lever. If the lever fits in the post freely buy it doesn't drop the float freely, you may adjust the heel to release compression between the heel and fork against the float. I attached a photo of the lever with my own identification of ifunctional parts. If you have a better descriptive name please let me know as I want you to be involved of naming its functional part.
At the moment I only have limited sample production parts for trials. I have contacted the manufacturer to adjust the hinge diameter to fit on the later model primer caps since some still available as original parts on some PT. For the price, I have to make sure it's proportional to the COD and I don't expect this to be expensive than the needle. Profit for this lever is not my priority or not important for me instead it's my honour to see everyone benefits from this innovation. Hopefully we will get the final production for everyone to use.
Just today we send a complete G4 kit to Greece who purchased the parts through our website and I include 1 free new lever pre-assembled with needle, float and primer cap in a secured sealed plastic and float padding not to push the needle in, during the shipment together with other parts.
I have the float needle clip installed on a Victa ute with an early G4 carby ,the float post was 2.5 mm and as it was getting dark soon after fitting the clip , I ended up watching the Video after getting the mower going and did some things differently.
The clip was tight so I pushed the hinge part of the clip over a 2.8 mm drill bit then bent the rear float tab ( or heel ) so it was a little looser on the back of the float
The assembly that I did was put the needle in then the clip then slightly open the needle and clip and fit the float.
The float clip ,needle and float worked well ,I turned the engine off from the fuel tap a few times and as the engine cut out from no fuel and as the motor was still spinning but not firing I would turn the tap on and engine would start running again ,also stopped the engine with the carby dry then turned the tap on and started the engine and all was well. (engine did not scream out when running out of fuel so crank seals are good and no vacuum leaks)
I like the modified mulch plate on this Utility as now the mower can't stall in long wet grass. (the mulch plate now pushes air out instead of downward)
This Utility is my test mower and I use it to cut wet grass, if I have to cut wet grass so has a few rust holes in the base also is the mower that I have fitted an electronic coil from a side pull 2 stroke , this one would start just using a little finger on the starter cord , doesn't take much effort or speed on the rope to start.
Have only cut grass for 10 minutes so far but have some long grass that will take an hour to cut so will give the float needle clip another test later on.
I tried fitting one the other day on a Tornado that I had put new rings in but I had too much trouble with the clip and ended up giving up on that carby and ended up modifying another carby and got it running fine and then for some reason the carby started flooding with fuel coming out the primer cap. Hit the primer cap and it stopped flooding. This of course floods the motor and then I had to clear the crank of fuel again. It is up and running again but without the clip and the clip would not have stopped the flooding anyway so I am still fighting float needles as I have done for years I am very tired of Victa float needles and the problems they cause
Hey NormK, have you tried it with the specially made primer caps coming out that are fabricated specifically to work with the clip and viton needle? It's good that you have shared your experience thus far with.existing primer caps and floats.
Maxwestern, could you explain what you have done to modify the mulching disc to shoot the grass more sideways. I have some four blade discs without flutes. Did you just block them off or actually change how they direct flow?
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
