I was walking and having a look around the hard rubbish piles in Maroubra when I found a green catcher in good nick outside a block of units of all places. It was a thrilling find but I couldn't help wondering what became of the mower it belonged to. My answer presented itself about 15 minutes later when I stumbled on it dumped around the next corner a few hundred metres away. Only thing is the hard to find handlebars were removed!! Oh well, happy hunting.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
Do you have any idea why someone would take the handles off an otherwise decent specimen of one of these? I have yet to see if it will go. First I need to get some starter cord for the old girl. The label says it's a Mustang, but I didn't think the Mustang used this particular hi arch base. The cover may have been swapped from another mower. Looks nice though.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
Bigted & NormK, I'll third it being a good score. I wasn't the least bit concerned at the missing handles. You don't often find these now. I got cross at a mate of mine recently after he described finding one similar to this but didn't grab it for me because he wasn't sure I wanted yet another mower. I made sure he never repeats that folly again lol. Thanks for clarifying it's original BT.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
Looks good MF, they are a good strong mower and base, just a pity about those thumb latch catchers, but even a broken thumb latch catcher is a lot better than a lot of the new catchers on mowers these days
Great find there Mowerfreak, looks good mate! The front Victa decal looks the same as my full crank one.
After chatting on these forums I am also now more on the lookout for any mowers that I might come across. I am kicking myself as many years ago when I sometimes used to go for hard rubbish drives I saw quite a few good old Victa steel deck mowers and I didn't get them because they weren't complete, darn they would have been a gold mine of spare parts now. I had left a few full cranks and possibly a few powertorques because they weren't complete mowers.
Not now though, any Victa that I might find now could have something usable on them, as we all know there aren't all that many left these days.
Cheers!
Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee ay, another trash picked Victa, hip hip Hooray!
Good one Converse we have to save the species, you have all sorts of effort being put into saving endangered species all around the world but only a few of us are trying to save the Victa 2 stroke
Yes it's the least we can do to save some of our history for future generations. A bit like what has happened to all the car makers in the country same has happened to our beloved Victa 2 stroke lawnmower.
You know it's funny talking about history and good old aussie inventions, I also have seen a few good old aussie Hills Hoists dumped in scrap metal yards also. You know there is nothing wrong with them at all. It's just that with all these new developments double storey backyard "dog boxes" are going up everywhere around the place and the iconic aussie backyard as we once knew it are slowly getting bulldozed.
For the record, yes I still have a good old aussie Hills Hoist in the backyard and I want to keep it there as long as I can, same goes for my good old Victa 2 stroke lawnmower!
They call all these new double storey buildings progress? I can say a few words on what I think about it which would get censored on here...lol!
Cheers!
Last edited by Converse; 19/02/1912:27 PM.
Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee ay, another trash picked Victa, hip hip Hooray!
As I said earlier, I found this catcher on it's own and thought I was in a dream and was going to wake up any minute! Perfect for the SPFC high arch I had recently purchased online I thought, but wondered where it's "host mower" had got to. Just like the catcher, I never expected to find the mower as well. Back to square one with the side pull but I wasn't going to pass this attractive machine up. It has the same type of base as the FCSP, colour, decals and all. A nice pigeon pair.
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
I finally got around to test starting it today and have encountered problems. First, I had forgotten it was leaking out the primer cap, so replaced the O ring. Then when I tried again I find it only starts in the run position and only runs very high or not at all along with momentary stalling and backfiring. I did notice the throttle control lever moves a little too freely for what I'm used to. Any ideas? It sounds like a carburettor tear down will be required, or is it possibly to do with the decompressor valve?
Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!
I'm not sure there Mowerfreak can't say i've had a mower that's ever backfired. It sounds like you will need to check out the carby inside just to see what's going on.
I'm not sure about the decompressor valve mate, if you have one lying around try changing it to see what happens. From what I see on these powertorque engines the decompressor valve is on the side and it's not hard to change them. As you know with the old full cranks it's on the inside of that top metal cowl and you have to take all this off to get to the decompressor valve. It looks much easier on these powertorque's.
Cheers!
Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee ay, another trash picked Victa, hip hip Hooray!
MF you will probably find that the cable has come out of the cam because it has rotated too far and the kill switch hasn't stopped it. Going to have to pull the carb apart but it has at least you have a runner so now it is just getting the carby controlled.
