I bet that's where Victa got their CSIRO designed special mulching base plate from. Mine has got a round plain baseplate. I think it was maybe an option as I've seen another with the same plate. It has three distinctive rivits on a strenghening washer. I'll keep my eye out for others but they will be scarce.
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The blade plate is not cracked Mf ,just the design. SupaSwift was another with 3 blades.
Jack has written here about the design with the patent , it's the standard original blade plate, the Plate Speedy refers to sounds like a later model Pope blade plate.
When the old blades were no longer available people just changed the blade plate.
Hello Max, Here's my problem with my Pope carb....... See the circled part....... well it's really two parts.... they screw together..... mine is siezed .... I have tried soaking in wd40, CLR heat rattle gun, but it's hard to hold the little inside brass round thing and get a spanner on the bottom nut. I need to change fibre washers. and I also need the two pin screws no 16 on the parts page. That Victa carb works really well..... for time being. cheers speedy
Last edited by speedy; 28/03/2207:59 PM.
........................Keep your blades sharp......................
With the nut on the fuel bowl ,you can't really use a rattle gun or use force as you know the whole lot will spin and as you say it's difficult holding the inside part from spinning.
Looks like it's tight on the last of the thread when removing ,I would get some Loctite and put it on the thread of the 2 brass parts that came apart then tighten the 2 parts and leave it for 24 hours to harden ,then put some vice grips on the upper end then tighten the nut at the lower end ,use penetrene on the thread ,keep working the thread by tightening and loosening, eventually as you loosen the nut should undo a mm more then tighten again and repeat many many many times eventually the nut will come off but you don't use a lot of force as this can damage or seize or break the brass thread .
So you're just working the thread backwards and forwards until eventually it will undo more and more.This can take a while.
With the 2 compensating tubes (no. 16) that screw into the emulsion tube ,they are just two threaded bolts with a hole in the middle so could be made ,just have to drill the right size hole.
The Victa carby sounds a little bad to me on this Pope,I can hear the engine popping in the video all the time , when the carby fuel mixtures are wrong you get that popping noise out the exhaust, even in my video I hear the popping noise when decelerating but not when throttling up and revving.
Here is a bike making the noise when decelerating but the Pope video you hear it all the time popping ,I wonder if too small a carby is working like a bigger carby with the choke stuck on.The right carby may also help that smoke problem.
One solution with stuck delicate things is to put them in penetrant in a jar and then place the jar in an ultrasonic cleaner. If you leave it for a decent period the penetrant will eventually migrate unless it’s actually become fused.
Good idea Ironbark. I'm spraying every day with penetrant.... funny how on the pars list it is not shown as two parts..... Anyway she's having a bath now. cheers speedy
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motor is ready........ base etc ready to come out of molasses bath. the work starts. there's no rust but still a bit of flaky paint that should come off easy. Max, I still can't get the brass nut off the bottom of carb, but I'm getting another carb complete in july, even has the two brass air tubes in place. got is soaking in brake fluid now. speedy
lest we forget
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I’ve never seen a pope mower but it’s possible that what you’re attempting to disassemble may have been together a very long time.
If the penetrant won’t loosen it then I’d try heat. I’ve had shafts semi fuse onto bearings and various bushings partially migrate into alloy in things I’ve tried to fix, so sometimes nothing works but cycling things with heat can really help to loosen things up.
This is what I do with old bits of cars and machinery.
If the bolt part is externally threaded (like a standard bolt) then I put the whole assembly in a thick plastic bag in a freezer overnight along with whatever spanner I am going to use to try to turn the bolt. This will reduce the amount of warming of the bolt that will occur just by working on it.
The next day sort out a good solid way to hold the assembly. I have a blacksmith’s vice and often use that as I can heat it up til it’s nice and hot without damage, however you can also use a big pair of vice grips. I apply my map torch (it’s easy to control heat) selectively to the outside while using the frozen spanner on the bolt. I apply very slight force in the tightening direction until I feel just hint of movement before then loosening.
If the part you can grab with a tool is internally threaded then you’ll need to heat that tool and and cool what you’re using to hold the assembly instead.
If you perform repeated cycles of heating and cooling with judicious amounts of force applied that can give a result. It’s a game of patience. If it doesn’t move I try another setup and another cycle of heat and cold.
With fuel systems there are residues that act like both salts and adhesives. We had a carb cleaner that came in a bucket and you’d give the component a good external clean with the parts washer and degreaser then soak the whole assembly in the bucket, strip it back as far as you could and put it back in the bucket. It was very effective at both cleaning and loosening parts. I don't know what was in it but you had to wear special gloves and none of it was allowed into a sink or drain. It was a long lasting product that would do a number of carbys or throttle bodies before losing its effectiveness.
The base looks good for it's age Speedy as both of my Pope rotary valve mowers will need a small amount of welding done on the bases.
I'd like to get my spare motor going but needs a fair amount of parts so probably cheaper to buy another mower
Once the carby arrives you will just need to adapt a recoil starter to work , If you want the starter a similar size to the original then I would use a Briggs and stratton starter ,just drill the rivets out of the Briggs starter and rivet it to the Pope cowl or make an adaptor plate ,this Pope is getting there.
I used a Sprint 3.75 starter on a Suzuki 2 stroke and it worked fine.
Can your use a late model Tecumseh starter? I have a mini glut of them at the moment. Problem is they are screwed onto the cowl using horizontal screws. You would probably have to cut out part of the cowl it's screwed into and in turn attach that to the Pope.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
I have heard of people making hub caps for the Pope from flat alloy plate and hammering it to a slight dish if you can't find second hand caps if any are missing.
The front wheel did a runner in the video,I hope the wheel didn't run too far it might get tire-d and I hope the wheel didn't end up on the road with cars going past as the wheel would be exhaust-ed.
The lawn needed mowing and the Pope needed a run......... 18" cut does a better job than and of my mowers........ Hubcap fell off but that's not a major problem...... I only had it mid range revs....... Had to stop as my arm was getting sore pushing it one handed....... maybe I need a go pro.... ha ha ha ha.
speedy
........................Keep your blades sharp......................
These rotary valve Pope mowers have a lot of grunt Speedy ,after I put the electronic ignition on my Pope the running Pope mower will try and spin in a circle if I'm not holding the handle .
Definitely one of the better vintage mowers , if you are after a starter for your mower ,every now and then I see old 4 stroke Clinton powered Pope mowers that no one seems to want, probably because they have no compression and they sell for $10.to $20 but the starter will fit the 2 stroke.Just have to keep a look out in online sales etc.
New Pope Mowers give you that get up and Mow Feeling.
Wish I could do my mowing/slashing one handed... but I do like the physical workout of struggling through the rough stuff with mowers way past their use-by date.
Another option Speedy may be a early sure start alloy housing impulse starter as they are the same bolt pattern, you can use a steel impulse starter but you need one from something like a Victa Mayfair 1965 to 1967.
There are 2 different bolt patterns on the steel impulse starters from 1963.
I saw a Pope motor on gumtree with a starter but I doubt it's worth $80. but if the price drops and you can get postage on the starter it may be an option.
My other Pope has so much compression, I think I'll need a decompressor.... but it should be going soon.
It looks like a 125cc Victa head would fit with the decompressor but would be a lot of work to make the cowl fit and the fuel tank fit over the decomp. The standard Pope should be ok without a decomp.
I'd forgotten that the later Pope 2 strokes have the decompressor standard ,it just has a linkage rod that when the starter rope is drawn out ,the rubber end of the link is in contact with the turning starter and this moves the linkage pushing in the decompressor .
I don't see many original working Pope decompressors ,seen a few where the linkage is missing or the decomp is seized.
