I have a Honda GCV 160 on a Victa 24. It runs well once you get it started but it is suffering from savage kickback if it decides not to fire. Any thoughts? The valves are set at .006 inlet and .008 exhaust and the decomp spring on the cam seems to be working fine. I'm just wondering if this is a similar problem to the PT Victas on these needing extra weight on the pulley to avoid this kickback
Yes I agree the Mass and Inertia are reduced when you use a standard engine in a Victa 24 ,as we know usually to overcome this problem manufacturers will use a much heavier pulley on the crank or a heavier cast iron flywheel instead of the alloy flywheel and sometimes they use a cast iron flywheel with a heavy pulley.
I've been meaning to fit a cast iron flywheel from a Chonda to my GXV LPG mower for some time now but still haven't got around to trying it out with the extra weight yet.
I think that's why a lot of my Chonda mowers I've had have worked exceptionally well to cut long grass with lightweight bar blades because they had factory fitted cast iron flywheels .
I'd try the cast iron flywheel on the GCV 160 Victa 24 to start with and see if that's enough mass to fix the kick back problem, if you're lucky you will only need a little extra mass to fix the problem ,sometimes modifying a 2 blade plate to take 4 blades will help the problem.
If you do use the cast iron Chonda flywheel from memory you will need to use the Chonda ignition coil.(i think the core and magnet spacing are different)
Good point Max, I hadn't thought about the flywheel. Now I have to check if I have any Chondas here because I had a bit of a clean up and got rid of the pile of motors I had sitting here. I also have another here with a Briggs Quantam on it and I am getting similar kickbacks.. They came from different places but I guess that is why I ended up with them
Hi Max, I didn't have a Chonda flywheel I could try so I ended up putting a 900 gram disc on the bottom and the motor fired straight up no attempt to kickback. Only thing was I had to have the belt disconnected because I had to have the motor forward so the disc could clear the rear axel. I will have to fit a weight above the pulley because there is plenty of room above it. I wonder how Victa got these things to run originally? Update on the Briggs, I tried it with the 900 gram disc , I can start it but it is going to need more weight. I will try it with 1.25kg and see how that goes
I would think originally Victa had these without kick back it's just a lot of the mowers you get Norm someone has messed around with them before you get your hands on them. It;s just the amount of time you spend fixing them as I would just swap a complete motor that has a cast iron flywheel if you had one spare or collect one at the side of the road.
It's a pity you didn't hold on to some old flywheels when the last lot of engines went to scrap as they are quick to swap over ,the only problem with the GCV 160 is the 4 alloy bits that stick up for the starter so you most likely would have swapped to another starter cup and starter when swapping the flywheel.
Sometimes you hardly need any extra weight on the crank to fix the kick back problem ,a 250 gram blade plate hub can be enough to fix the kick back problem if your lucky.
Just swapped my GXV 160 alloy flywheel for a cast iron one ,it was only about 90 grams heavier but the cast iron one had 4 spokes going to the outer cast metal ring so most of the weight is in the outer ring and it seemed to make a big difference ,cut some grass that was taller than the mower and it didn't stall once also seemed to run smoother.
Pic below is a little difficult to see how high the grass was but there is an old car bonnet on the left side in the image and the bonnet is sitting on top of a mower so you can see the height of the grass next to that and this grass hadn't been cut since last summer.
I have heard the GXV alloy flywheel are a good replacement to fit on a GX200 as then you can disconnect the governor and rev them to 7000 rpm but you still need a few other mods first like billet conrod and stronger valve springs etc.The cast iron flywheel can explode if revved out too much also I hear the magnets can fly off.
Hi Max, I'm chasing some weight lifting weights to make up the weights to fit on these mowers but at least I now know why I ended up with these slashers, because they couldn't get them started and the Honda had no pull starter and from memory no carby and this was from a mower business closing down. Timewise they are not worth fixing but they are such a good slasher and there is nothing else like them being made anymore
Hi Max, Those 2 items have been kicking around for a while. The 24 is way too dear, no blade carrier and blades, no belt, and the motor is probably stuffed
Yes the 24 would only be worth it if you had a complete one with a damaged base and if this 24 was close as it would save $50. in fuel to find another one Norm.
Hi Max, Still having no joy with this Honda, I have put 1.25kg on the crank and it starts first pull every time without the belt on, as soon as I put the belt on it is back to severe kickbacks. I'm running out of ideas
As you know four stroke mowers generally don't have big counter weights on the crank like a Victa full crank so I would try a bigger diameter weight as the small 1.25 kg weight isn't very far from the centre line of the crank ,you could try a 2.25 kg weight .
You may need a weight in the diameter size of the flywheel or even a bigger diameter but 1/4 inch thick if you can fit this in under the base otherwise you'd need a heavy cast iron flywheel.
I have some 2.5kg ones here Max so I will try one of those. At least with an extra 2.5kg spinning on the crank it should give it a lot more cutting capacity and less work on the governor. I just don't understand how Victa got them to work
NormK, I think you just found that the GCV160 was designed for bar blade use which more like a heavy flywheel. Most here have heck kick back without the blade being installed.
Now I do know you guys are more into swing back blades so most likely as you found by adding extra is the root cause.
As always things work great when new but as wear happens things can go AWOL.
Just got thru fighting a problem on a Briggs that came with a broken ACR. Mower ran great until the customer got home. Then it start heavy surging. I actually tore the engine down three times trying to find the problem with no results. Finally for some crazy reason I decided to try a new spark plug. It is was the root cause of the surging. I felt so stupid...
Hi AVB, I feel your pain and it does not help if I say we have all been caught out by an intermittent faulty spark plug. As for this Honda I fitted the 2.5 kg weight, first pull it fired up and did exactly what it should. Since then I haven.t got it started and it is back to kicking back so I will pull the motor off and put it on a push mower and get rid of it that way, not wasting any more time on it. I think I will put a brand new motor on it and get rid of the slasher that way, and if that works I will get a few more new motors and put them on the rest of the slashers here
Yep AVB whenever I have a motor with a running issue I like to use a second hand plug out of a mower that I know has no problems as sometimes you can get caught out with new plugs that won't run properly.
That's strange Norm if it worked the first time ,If it doesn't kick back with the plug lead disconnected it may be fixed by slightly retarding the ignition ,you could take the flywheel key out and see if a little retarding of the spark fixes it ,if it does just file the key on the side to retard the ignition and move the flywheel into position before tightening the flywheel nut but sounds like you are getting fed up with this one.
I think I read somewhere that with different Honda small engines they can have more advance than others.
