Restoration, as a hobby. But currently not looking to sell my mowers after I have restored them. Also to learn as much as I can about victa mowers pre 1980 so I can help others where ever I can! I'm just in love with all vintage mowers but especially victa's!
All good, I can't help you with restoration details but others might, I just grab those when I can and rip the motors off so I can use them on utilities/ slashers. Does it run and do you have a catcher, they are usually all banged up and good ones are hard to find.
The victa code it V174, very difficult to find information on. It's an export model, 76-77 export VC-SPORT and the export Mustang have the carby in a backwards configuration. It's so difficult to find all and any information about these but it's out there.....
Last edited by Seanoss; 26/02/2101:01 PM. Reason: Adding photos after resizing them
I've followed this forum for some time but just become a member .... thanks for all the knowledge and interesting posts I've seen up until now.
I've been pushing Victas ever since age of 5 or 6 in about 1961 ... starting with my uncle's Victa 18 Special. After an unsuccessful foray in the early 60s with an H G Palmer 4 stroke, in the mid 60s my father acquired (in my opinion) the best Victa ever being a 160CC Corvette 2 with impulse starter.
That was eventually replaced with a 1980 Victa Charger with 3.5HP B&S (from David Jones George St Sydney Homewares store) which now looks the worse for wear ... but is still going strong 42 years later. I struggle to drive past any abandoned mower and some 15? years ago I stopped for a V137 Series 70 Mark III Sports (G3 Carby) which I understand is 160cc. The owner had just given away the catcher however I picked one up from Earlwood Lawnmowers Sales & Service at William Street, Earlwood - legends.
It has graced our holiday shack since that time and has served alongside the Charger. However, I recently turfed a steep embankment and the 4 stroke with a wet sump is not up to working on its side and I now need to rely on the trusty 2 stroke Sports ... which has a problem ... Ever since acquiring the Sports it would start and barely keep running, hunting and fading at a slow idle until it warmed up. Once warm, the throttle could carefully be advanced and gradually it would sustain higher revs. However 2 years ago it just refused service altogether.
Since then I have stripped, cleaned reassembled the carby; replaced all ignition components (coil, condensor, points), also replaced rusted out muffler. After reassembly including timing, it took time to get started and demonstrated the same low rev hunting and fading for a few seconds ... except it did once rev right out which encouraged me to believe that the timing etc was all as it should be. I've removed and substituted the ZIp decompressor with a spare spark plug to check if that was the issue. Have checked for spark with the plug out and grounded and there is a reliable strong spark when turning the engine over. Have sloshed a shot of fuel down the air inlet pipe to establish whether it is a carburation / starving issue - no effect. I'm at a loss and am wondering whether it is a compression issue such as crankcase seals, piston rings ??? Maybe I should put some oil down the bore to seal the rings and test it again ? They are generally to simple to sort ... it's generally either no spark or no fuel !
I love the old series Victas and am sure this has more service yet to give. Any suggestions as to where to from here would be much appreciated. Cheers, Ross
I've had these 2 stroke Victa mowers refuse to rev out when the exhaust port has mostly blocked up with carbon ,it's easily checked if that's the problem ,just remove the muffler and check the port hole isn't restricted, if it's restricted get the carbon out with a screw driver making sure not to damage the piston or rings in the process.
Also I would run the motor without the air filter element first, to see if it will rev out ,leave the filter housing connected and check it has a restriction hole in one end otherwise the motor won't run right all the Victa 2 stroke motors have a restriction on the filter housing ,then very carefully check the induction hose (rubber hose pipe) for any where the hose is not fully round as I've had a few that would not rev out because the air intake rubber pipe had slightly kinked on a bend etc and was restricting air flow and when I held the pipe with my fingers so the pipe is fully round again on the bends the motor revved out as normal.
An easy way to test this is to remove the air filter housing and put a straight short hose on the carby connected to the filter housing and run the motor or use kink free intake hose or straighten hold all the parts of the hose that look flattened , just hold the hose with fingers so it's round and unrestricted on all the bends etc when it's on full throttle .
I've had crank case bolts come loose and a crank case leak will stop the motor running properly, also check head bolts are tight and gaskets are good as a leaking gasket can stop a motor revving out.
You say that a shot of fuel down the intake pipe didn't help so sounds like the fuel tap is flowing fuel well enough and the needle in the carby isn't getting stuck shut. Sometime I like to turn the fuel off and just run the engine off a squirt of start ya bastard down the intake for a few seconds to see if the motor will run and rev out on starter fluid.
If the crank seals are leaking it will be hard to start and sometimes you can see the lower half of the crank will be wet.
Hey Max ... Thx so much for taking the time to respond ... greatly appreciated. Your comments re the filter housing are likely to be very relevant ... "all the Victa 2 stroke motors have a restriction on the filter housing" ... the air filter housing has been broken ever since I acquired it and I fashioned a cover sleeve for it by cutting the conical top off a 350ml plastic soft drink bottle and sliding it down over the original. Also I have just identified that the filter element has a hole in it. I'll check out the whole air intake plumbing ... as well as your other suggestions - and see what transpires. Many thanks.
