I put this one together from left over parts (rubbish) ,just had to pay for the new KN low pressure regulator ,that was about $60.
It's half Rover Utility from the seventies and half a full crank 2 stroke Victa Utility base ,I guess that makes a RoVic mower.
Running straight LPG now but the fuel tank is there so could easily be made to run duel fuel.
The last LPG mower I had, didn't have the engine governor working and had no gas cut out if the motor stalled in long grass so this one is a lot better ,also has 4 blades compared with the last LPG mower that used a bar blade.
Not finished yet but has been tested and works well.
Hi Max, that is good and I know petrol prices have risen and I guess it has the environmental advantage of low emissions but I can't see there being a market for them. I hope you have a fitting so you can fill the bottle at a servo because if you had to pay the bottle exchange price it could be expensive
I only run this mower on car LPG and fill the BBQ bottle myself from discarded car LPG tanks so doesn't cost anything for fuel.
Online there are a few places that are happy for you to take away old car LPG tanks and they usually have 10 to 20 litres still in them .Scrap yards and tips also have a few bottles ,but I haven't needed to collect any bottles for years as I still have a few with gas . If I had to buy LPG I would fill a fork lift tank at the servo and fill the small bottle from that as you would still save at least 50 percent in running costs and LPG does't go off so it will keep for decades.
In summer with a petrol mower the 1/4 of a tank of petrol left after mowing usually evaporates away by the next time you use the mower but with LPG you have no loss of fuel from evaporation.
I haven't seen LPG mowers for sale in Aus but in the UK and US they are available .
Didn't think anyone else would want one but I will get to use up some old LPG and haven't noticed any difference in power with this LPG mower.
Took me years to empty all the car LPG tanks we had here using them for the BBQ. So did you buy the carby kit or just direct the gas straight into the existing carby
I Imagine an LPG mower is much better for the environment as mowers are devoid of pollution gear that cars have and you won't have the problems you get with petrol carbies fouling up.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
Yes it's impossible for the carby to foul up Mf , you could leave the mower in a shed for 10 years and it would still start first go.
I've looked at all the different LPG mower setups Norm and a lot are expensive and some LPG carbies are made to fit one size motor only.
I went with this KN low pressure regulator because it will run LPG up to 40 hp and will run Natural gas ,the carby on my mower just uses a 1/4 inch copper pipe that fits into where the main jet was.
What about a steam powered mower. I could burn all my off cuts......... cheers speedy
Once you add a boiler to a mower Speedy it will look like a steam tractor. I think it would be easier to make a steam generator and run an electric mower.
Originally Posted by NormK
Ok so you got the fitting Max, did that include the converter for the $60?
The carby gas fitting above that looks professionally made costs more than the gas converter Norm ,the most economic way is to buy the converter and make the rest ,all my gas fittings were from discarded Barbeques and I already had a lot of workshop / Vehicle air line fittings. I just used a 1/4 outside diameter copper car gas pipe that fits into the drilled out main jet position in the carby.
Originally Posted by Mowerfreak
How do you transfer the LPG from the car tank to the mower tank? Is the pressure greater than the mower tank?
To fill one gas bottle from another you just need to plum them together.
The outlet of a Barbeque bottle is the filler port but you must open the bleeder screw on the bottle so liquid gas will expel from the bottle when it's 80 percent full ,when that happens you stop filling and close the bleeder screw.
The pressure in the car tank is greater than the mower tank but I have filled larger tanks with smaller bottles as long as you can open a bleeder valve on the large tank that is being filled you won't have a problem.
The problem with filling a larger tank with a smaller tank is the car tanks don't have bleeder valves but I have installed bleeder vales in large car tanks so I can transfer gas from smaller bottles.
The Victa 2 stroke is ok if the grass isn't too long Mf but I'm getting tired of the noisy 2 stroke when I turn the revs up to cut long grass, also the 2 stroke uses twice the fuel as the Honda. Costs for motors are the same ,plenty of people throw Honda and Victa out here.
I have never found a Honda, only Chondas. They must be treated like gold up this way.
Max must have hit a magical fountain of Honda somewhere, because all the really good ones, even decades old, seem to fetch big prices. Plenty of the fake ones available to be picked up, along with the lower end versions. I seem to cop a sea of Briggs (though these seem to have picked up lately in price, and more people seem to be rejuvenating them rather than chucking them out), PT's, fake Honda and assorted Gardenline/Talon/Etc.
In any case, I love that mod Max. Pure genius. If only LPG was still going for 10 cents a litre.
With the Honda mowers I just keep the engines and throw the rest out , I've sold good running Honda motors for $25. and bought Honda motors at swap meets for $10. ,I see Honda mowers advertised really cheap ,a lot of people are going electric ,the council is already using an electric zero turn ride on mower and using an electric robotic mower.
LPG is 0 cents a litre for the mower , there is always someone throwing out old car tanks and BBQ bottles with gas in them, I probably have 50 litres in old tanks to use up already.
With the Honda mowers I just keep the engines and throw the rest out , I've sold good running Honda motors for $25. and bought Honda motors at swap meets for $10. ,I see Honda mowers advertised really cheap ,a lot of people are going electric ,the council is already using an electric zero turn ride on mower and using an electric robotic mower.
LPG is 0 cents a litre for the mower , there is always someone throwing out old car tanks and BBQ bottles with gas in them, I probably have 50 litres in old tanks to use up already.
Cheers Max.
Nice one. Using up the old gas tanks, smart thinking.
As for Electric, from what I have been hearing through the grape vine, a lot of countries are getting very protective with their lithium lately, and it could become a problem to source, so unless they move on to something else, we might be seeing battery prices go through the roof sooner or later.
As for Electric, from what I have been hearing through the grape vine, a lot of countries are getting very protective with their lithium lately, and it could become a problem to source, so unless they move on to something else, we might be seeing battery prices go through the roof sooner or later.
I think it's only a matter of time until they use cheaper better battery technology .
Got the tachometer fitted and checked the cutting rpm mostly was cutting at 2990 rpm then in long grass I put the throttle up to full at 3330 rpm.
It doesn't look like it's worth keeping the first gas mower now, just use it for parts .
All this fanfare over this electric "revolution" suddenly taking the place of ICEs reeks of a giant sham. As if electric power hasn't been around for a century already, they treat it like it's this new technology.
There's an agenda behind this I know it. After GM scrambled to destroy a promising electric vehicle in the 1990s (the subject of the documentary film Who Killed The Electric Car?) and remove any trace of it, now it's being flogged to death that's it's somehow the right thing to do.
I do not trust today's world one little bit. The writing was on the wall since the 1970s.
Last edited by Mowerfreak; 30/03/2306:34 PM.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
California is banning the sale of petrol-powered outdoor machinery by 2024.
The mower the council is using now is the Mean Green Rival ,Mean Green have been manufacturing commercial Zero-turns in the USA since 2009, I just see this technology being greatly improved upon every decade.
I wouldn't say GM removed all trace of the EV1 as GM gave away 40 EV1 cars to Museums and Educational institutions after disabling their powertrains but there is a complete powertrain one here in Australia still.
I think we are slow to take up new technology ,thanks to Tesla's work on wireless transfer of energy in the early nineteen hundreds we then started using this technology over 100 years later eg. In September 2012, the Nokia 920 became the first commercially available smart phone to offer built-in wireless charging . The first commercialized dynamic wireless charging system was developed as early as 2009 by researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
Had a few little problems with the LPG mower to sort out.
1 The front wheels were skidding when cutting long wet grass ,the grass was getting stuck around the front wheels ,there is room around the wheels (about 19mm from the wheel to the base)
I could just cut dry grass and shouldn't have a problem or try wheel scrapers or replace front wheels that are dished out further or just reverse mount the front wheels so the dish is out more.
2 The wheel base is longer than standard and when I lift the mower side ways, with 2 wheels on the ground and 2 wheels off the ground the base had a little flex .
I fixed the flex in the base by using 4 Rose joints , just had to wait 2 months for them to arrive from China ( Cheap to buy).
Made the rose joints into an A support to strengthen the base and also hold to LPG tank in place.
Also I have a spare LPG tank so when I run out of LPG you just swap the tank over and fill the empty bottle later.
I think the lpg converters are about $70 now but I never need to buy LPG so you probably save $70. in 4 years compared to using petrol , just depends how much grass you cut each year.
I also wanted a mower I could put in the boot of the car on a hot day and not stink the car out with petrol fumes.
Never have to pull the carby down to clean it because I've left old fuel in the mower.
Hi Max, I have had plenty of gas tanks here over the years from cars and running the BBQ etc but cutting up the tanks so I can get them down to the scrap is a nuisance
Years ago I'd put all the old tanks in the scrap metal bins that were left outside businesses to take old free metal but now all the bins say no gas tanks and the scrap yards say no gas tanks ,so I asked a place that said no gas tanks and at first they said they wouldn't take them if I cut them in half so I asked the person behind the desk to ask someone in charge and they said no problem if they are cut in half but I might ring another yard to see if I can just cut a 6 inch line on one side on the tank as it should be safe enough just with one cut.
Yes you need to do some things safely otherwise you'll get blown up or burnt ,I would use water for car petrol tanks but with LPG I just use compressed air to fill the tank then let the air out and keep repeating the process until the air coming out of the tank will not burn , it takes quite a few times filling them with air but is less messy, then I cut the tank up.
I've always thought about trying arc cutting rods but no idea how long or how well they work.
I have never tried those rods Max, I have oxy here but I use it only when I have to weld copper or brass. The only cutting I have is grinders with thin discs, I have often contemplated getting a small plasma cutter but I keep thinking that at my age would I get enough use out of it to cover the cost. Doing mostly hobby stuff and not making much money out of my equipment I can't justify it to myself.
Hi Max, the cutting discs cost me 60 cents each and would probably use 3 to cut a tank in half. Plenty of plasmas out there just have to make sure you can get the consumables for them
I never knew you could buy them that cheap online ,I see if I buy 100 discs they are 62 cents each.
Problem I have is one LPG tank is 25 kg and price per kg is .076 cents for 1 kg ,25 x .076 cents is $1.90 for the tank and for 3 discs x .62 cents is $1.87 and then the time cutting and the fuel cost to the scrap yard and it's not worth it , some scrap yards here are 24 hours ,there is no one there after hours but you can dump your metal for free so I may as well just dump the tanks for free without cutting them.
I've just got my hands on a LP Gas carby unit from China for a mower engine etc, just to have a look ,it was $17. with free post.
Looking at the gas converter ,I'm glad I didn't use this type as this one would leak gas if the engine cuts out and it is a small converter so I don't think it would run well on natural gas if you wanted to run a generator off the house gas meter.
The plastic primer button I assume would disintegrate in sunlight as the newer models have been changed to an alloy primer button.
The orange plastic gas switch has 2 holes that go through to the gas so gas could leak out or air mixes with the gas.
I was only planning on using the carby so I can test that out.
This gas unit is for about 5 Hp but I see now they sell a bigger unit now for about 10 hp
I just tested the new LPG carburetor, which is a dual-fuel carburetor, and I couldn't get it to run properly. The motor sounded terrible with this gas carburetor. I tried more LPG and less LPG using the tuning screw, but it made no difference; it was still running poorly.
I put the original modified LPG carburetor back on, and it ran perfectly again. I'm not sure why the new carburetor was so bad—possibly the LPG connection in the new carburetor doesn't have an angled fitting inside to draw gas. One thing I thought I shouldn't have done with the homemade LPG carburetor was make the venturi so large, as I drilled the carburetor out as far as it would go.
You can see the differences in the venturi in the picture below. I guess I can use the new LPG carburetor as a petrol-only carburetor on another mower if I want to get some use out of it.
It has been a few years now since I started using an LPG mower, and I still haven't needed to buy any LPG, as I have been using up gas from discarded LPG bottles.
