OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Walk Behind Lawn Mower Frames Victa Lawn Mower Frames Victa V40 Lawnkeeper Problems?

Hi there,
We bought a Victa v40 push mower three years ago, and have only just taken it out of it's box yesterday. It's our first lawnmower so we're a little clueless! We bought the required oil and fuel for it yesterday, followed instructions etc. First pull it started like a dream, sounded lovely... did a 1m length strip which it did easily, my partner then decided to go get the grass catcher from the shed and while he walked off it just died. And it will not start again.
We're stumped. My partner looked at it and took bits off (checking spark plug and air filter etc.) He says there doesn't appear to be a spark after testing that. There's fuel everywhere that fuel should be too. It just will not go!
Has anyone had this problem or can suggest a possible way of fixing this?
thanks heaps!

This may get too technical to be practical, but let's try it and see. As far as I know, the V40 is an overhead valve 4 stroke engine, so it should have pure petrol (without any oil in it) in its fuel tank, and oil in its sump. You check the oil level with the dipstick, rather like for a car. Does it have petrol in the tank, and oil in the sump?

Next, I don't know yet how it gets extra fuel for starting the engine when it is cold (that is, hasn't been warmed up yet). I'm guessing it has a choke, and there is a setting on the speed control on the handlebars for cold starting. If that is right, as soon as it is running evenly (less than a minute) you would have to move the speed control away from the cold start position, or the engine would get unhappy and stop after a couple of minutes, and it would not restart. So, does it have a choke (specific control position for cold starting), and if so, did you leave it choked after it started?

If you answer those questions, your answers will probably lead to more questions.

Thanks for your reply.
Definitely leading to more questions haha.
Everything is where it should be re: oil and fuel. and I just asked my partner how he started it and what he left it running on, and he said he started it in the run/choke position and then moved it to midway until the revs sounded right.
It's so frustrating seeing a shiney new lawn mower just sit there. I told him it'd be easier to get the pet sheep in from the paddock

OK, so the fuel and oil were right - please confirm that there was enough fuel, so it couldn't have run out.

Next step is to verify that there is spark. The usual way to do that is to remove the spark plug from the engine, attach the plug lead to the spark plug, put the speed control in the start position, hold or clamp the metal outside body of the spark plug to a metal part of the engine, preferably the cylinder head, and pull the starter. There should be a series of tiny blue sparks across the gap in the spark plug between two tiny metal bits at the end of the threaded part: the dirty part of the spark plug that was inside the engine and is now covered with blackish stuff. The sparks should appear when the engine is spinning, and not otherwise.

Yup, plenty fuel.
We've had a friend come over to have a look and they tested the spark, seems there's no spark. Tried other spark plugs just in case but no go. They've now taken it to the work shop where there's a tester light thingo as well as other tools.
It's so disappointing that it's brand new and has something wrong with it already, and of course warranty is no good since it took us 3 years to unpack it haha.
Fingers crossed they figure out it's something easy to fix.

If it has no spark, either the electronic ignition unit has failed or there is a fault in the kill-switch (engine stop) circuit. Either way it is extremely easy to fix, but you will need a new part if it is the ignition unit. Because it is brand new and there have been some quality problems with the Chinese-built engines, the ignition unit is probably slightly more likely to be the problem.

Having one fault is no reason to expect another, but it does seem the Chinese engines do have some quality problems in several areas. It was probably worse three years ago than it is now - they've probably fixed a lot of the quality control issues by now, but I think yours might have been a fairly early one with the overhead valve engine. However, I hear they tend to run quite nicely when all is well. Please tell us what the fault was when it is found - people here like to stay in touch with what kind of fault is happening to what kind of equipment.

Hi all. My first post. I just successfully replaced the camshaft in my v40. Only had it 3 yrs and hadn't done much work at all really , but last weekend my son was doing the backyard when it suddenly just stopped. Had spark , fuel , oil but when I took rocker cover off I noticed the valves were not moving in correct time with flywheel. Turned out the plastic/nylon cam cog had lost a few teeth allowing it to move out of sync with the crank. $10 for a replacement second hander and I'm back in business. Life's good when your mower works! I havn't owned a lot of mowers , but the V40 is excellent for smooth running, easy start , quiet and heaps of torque. After seeing how simple the engine design is, I reckon I'm gonna own this one for ages.

Hi Tim, and welcome to Outdoorking. Glad you got your engine going again, but there must be a reason for the plastic timing gear breaking at such an early age. Whatever was wrong, may still be wrong (unless it was a quality defect in the gear). This isn't a serious problem, if you get 3 years out of each gear, but it is worth thinking about. If you like the engine (and I can understand why you do), you will probably want to find out more about its peculiarities as you go along.