Hi Jeff I will put a PT on the Briggs sliding plate and see how it fits. With the Briggs and the PT's on the Victa bases they use different bolt holes so I assume this will be the case with the sliding plates
Ok Jeff back to the Victa 24 pages. The pulley is 70mm in diameter, the one you have is obviously the one off the full crank so it is the right diameter. You are going to have to turn the pulley out to go over the PT boss and leave about 3mm in the end to fit up onto the boss in the same manner as it does on the blade carrier with the big washer.I have cut the sections out of the one here to allow the pulley on the motor to go through
It sure looks like the pulley will fit through now. Much better.
I still do not think my pulley is original. It fitted over a ground-down original Victa blade boss not straight on to the shaft. If it is the original its much modified and quite neatly in a lathe unlike the blade boss which was just roughly ground.
It worked fine and its easy to get the pulley off by just undoing the nut. At least the pulley is the right size.
Certainly not original Jeff, on the F/C's you remove the boss and the pulley goes straight on to the taper on the shaft. This can't be done on the PT's because you need the boss in place to keep the flywheel on
On the Powertorques the blade boss is an interference fit on the flywheel not the shaft as I found out when I pulled one off and the flywheel came with it. It was very hard to get the boss off the flywheel afterwards. I guess the old dissimilar metal corrosion was the culprit. The next one I took off left the flywheel behind but that needed a few days soaking in WD40 before it would leave the engine. Of course there is almost no need to ever take one off except if you want to machine the blade boss as I did then. I have given up on that idea now and decided to machine the pulley to fit over the standard blade boss.so that any Powertorque will fit as a straight swap over. Hopefully a full crank will also fit by turning the pulley upside down.
Jeff I'm not sure how you can achieve it to fit both motors. I'm not sure how critical it is to get the pulley height correct, belt is fairly long and will probably accept a bit of misalignment . I will put the pulley on a F/C and get a measurement from the slasher base to the center off the "V" so it gives you a measurement to aim for. I doubt once set up you would ever consider going back to a F/C, there is a lot more PT's out there now
That's the measurement I'll aim at when the new boring bar kit arrives. Probably a few mm out either way would not matter much.
I have a workable version hopefully of the Powertorque sliding plate made. Its a bit rough just made by welding some extra bits on to the center of an old Powertorque base which I cut out with the grinder. It will do to see if there are any other problems when I start her up. If it all works as I hope I'll use it for a template for a new one of 4 or 5mm steel plate .Actually it does not look too bad. Can not actually see very much of it when the engine is installed.
I have left the old FC sliding plate untouched. Hopefully can put an FC back on if ever needed although that might now need a new pulley. I'm just not to keen to make too many non-reversible changes. Look what Norm is doing to his FC 24 which at one stage had a Briggs on it.
I wonder if anyone has ever seen an original Victa Powertorque 24? I would imagine they have done something similar to what I am doing. There is a crossways slot in the base in front of the sliding plate on mine almost right where it needs to be for the muffler.
Jeff I have seen a few PT 24's on ebay that I have missed out on but I haven't been up close to one to see what they did. I assume it had the same sliding plate that one I did that had a factory Briggs fitted. The base was different again because it had an extension in the casting and that had a rear sliding bolt hole in it so that it was away from under the Briggs motor. It looked like the PT exhaust slot was in the left hand side so this would mean the motor would be rear facing as per the FC's including the side pulls. When they fitted the PT this way on these they had the top cover without the fuel tank so the motor could be turned anyway and would not look wrong
I think it would look OK crossways with a Utility type cowl for a handle tank (or an ordinary PT cowl with the tank cut off). These have the slots in the cowl running North South when the motor is East West. It might also make the snorkel easier to fit using a standard Powertorque snorkel, without turning the carby upside down.
Anyway this is just a trial at the moment. Can always start again.
Sorry Jeff, that measurement I gave you yesterday is wrong, I forgot about the spacers under the motor. Got an unmolested one here today and the measurement from the deck to the top of the belt is 34mm. That is fairly easy to measure and you can then work out what you need to do with the pulley. MF I can't imagine these have a cult following, it is just that they are a superb machine for tackling the really tough jobs and even though they are tough they are light enough to swing and push around. All the other types have to be self propelled because to get them rugged enough they manufacture them using heavy steel material, then because it is self propelled the motors they have to use have to be bigger and heavier than a little full crank motor that can rev its heart out on any angle slope
I doubt that mine will be that high. I might need some spacers as well. Full cranks and Powertorques and FC's have the same shaft length don't they? I was just hoping that if I put the pulley on the end of the shaft all would be OK but I had no idea what the correct measurement should be. Still its easier to raise the pulley than lower it.
That one of yours must have a top starter motor, not side pull. Much earlier although probably more common. No sign of a sliding plate or even the bolt holes for one.
Yes Jeff it is an early base the same as the one I opened up the other day. Belt height down from the top of the deck is probably the best height to use as long as you are somewhere close to it. If I hadn't sold the last one I set up (it had a factory Briggs on it and I put a F/C on it, on that one I left the boss on it and just fitted the pulley off the Briggs straight onto the boss
I'm still kicking myself, I had a PT one lined up for $80 but it was right out the other side of Melb, hour and a half each way, I was having trouble with my leg and I was not game enough to tell my wife that I was bringing another one home so I eventually told them I wasn't going to be able to pick it up. I am still on the hunt at the moment, one will surface
I guess that belt tension induced wear on the bearings would be common to any belt applications. I guess that would include the edger and the reel mower. Although by this stage I'm not sure if they continued with either. Of course a 24 works a lot harder than either of those.
.Did they ever stand a PT upright?
Norm $80 would surely be towards the top of your budget. 24's are probably worth it I suppose but you would not want to have to do much to it to sell it again for a reasonable price .