Hi all,

I put this one together from left over parts (rubbish) ,just had to pay for the new KN low pressure regulator ,that was about $60.

It's half Rover Utility from the seventies and half a full crank 2 stroke Victa Utility base ,I guess that makes a RoVic mower.

Running straight LPG now but the fuel tank is there so could easily be made to run duel fuel.

The last LPG mower I had, didn't have the engine governor working and had no gas cut out if the motor stalled in long grass so this one
is a lot better ,also has 4 blades compared with the last LPG mower that used a bar blade.

Not finished yet but has been tested and works well.



Cheers
Max.

Hi Max,
that is good and I know petrol prices have risen and I guess it has the environmental advantage of low emissions but I can't see there being a market for them. I hope you have a fitting so you can fill the bottle at a servo because if you had to pay the bottle exchange price it could be expensive

Hi Norm,

I only run this mower on car LPG and fill the BBQ bottle myself from discarded car LPG tanks so doesn't cost
anything for fuel.

Online there are a few places that are happy for you to take away old car LPG tanks and they usually have 10
to 20 litres still in them .Scrap yards and tips also have a few bottles ,but I haven't needed to collect any
bottles for years as I still have a few with gas . If I had to buy LPG I would fill a fork lift tank at the servo and
fill the small bottle from that as you would still save at least 50 percent in running costs and LPG does't go
off so it will keep for decades.

In summer with a petrol mower the 1/4 of a tank of petrol left after mowing usually evaporates away by the next time you use the
mower but with LPG you have no loss of fuel from evaporation.

I haven't seen LPG mowers for sale in Aus but in the UK and US they are available .

Didn't think anyone else would want one but I will get to use up some old LPG and haven't noticed any difference in power
with this LPG mower.

Cheers
Max.

Took me years to empty all the car LPG tanks we had here using them for the BBQ. So did you buy the carby kit or just direct the gas straight into the existing carby

I Imagine an LPG mower is much better for the environment as mowers are devoid of pollution gear that cars have and you won't have the problems you get with petrol carbies fouling up.

Yes it's impossible for the carby to foul up Mf , you could leave the mower in a shed for 10 years and it
would still start first go.

I've looked at all the different LPG mower setups Norm and a lot are expensive and some LPG carbies are made
to fit one size motor only.

I went with this KN low pressure regulator because it will run LPG up to 40 hp and will run Natural gas ,the
carby on my mower just uses a 1/4 inch copper pipe that fits into where the main jet was.


Cheers
Max.

Set one up for me!!

Good one Max. a new fuel resource.
What about a steam powered mower. I could burn all my off cuts.........
cheers speedy

Ok so you got the fitting Max, did that include the converter for the $60?

How do you transfer the LPG from the car tank to the mower tank? Is the pressure greater than the mower tank?

There is a lot of info. here Mf to set up a LPG mower. https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/21337191.cfm


Once you add a boiler to a mower Speedy it will look like a steam tractor. I think it would be easier to make a steam generator
and run an electric mower.


The carby gas fitting above that looks professionally made costs more than the gas converter Norm ,the most
economic way is to buy the converter and make the rest ,all my gas fittings were from discarded Barbeques
and I already had a lot of workshop / Vehicle air line fittings. I just used a 1/4 outside diameter copper car gas pipe
that fits into the drilled out main jet position in the carby.


To fill one gas bottle from another you just need to plum them together.

The outlet of a Barbeque bottle is the filler port but you must open the bleeder screw on the bottle so liquid
gas will expel from the bottle when it's 80 percent full ,when that happens you stop filling and close the bleeder screw.

The pressure in the car tank is greater than the mower tank but I have filled larger tanks with smaller bottles as long
as you can open a bleeder valve on the large tank that is being filled you won't have a problem.

The problem with filling a larger tank with a smaller tank is the car tanks don't have bleeder valves but I have installed
bleeder vales in large car tanks so I can transfer gas from smaller bottles.

Cheers
Max.

Done a few more modifications to the gas mower.

Made an adjustable height linkage rod so I can adjust the deck pitch so the blades at the front are lower than when at the back.

Put some larger wheels on and put the motor down 1/8 of an inch.

Cut some long wet grass Today and the motor didn't drop any rpm under load, worked better than my 2 stroke mowers.

Cheers
Max.

I know the dedicated gas AU Falcon had more torque than the standard petrol version of the six, so this sounds like the mower engine is the same deal.

Also the Honda has more torque than the 160 cc 2 stroke Victa Mf.

Cheers
Max.

Yes but the PT is way way cheaper to buy with very tenacious performance.

The Victa 2 stroke is ok if the grass isn't too long Mf but I'm getting tired of the noisy 2 stroke when I turn the revs up to cut long
grass, also the 2 stroke uses twice the fuel as the Honda. Costs for motors are the same ,plenty of people throw Honda and Victa out here.

Cheers
Max.

I will have to start looking around your way I want as many Hondas as I can find

I have never found a Honda, only Chondas. They must be treated like gold up this way.

Max must have hit a magical fountain of Honda somewhere, because all the really good ones, even decades old, seem to fetch big prices. Plenty of the fake ones available to be picked up, along with the lower end versions. I seem to cop a sea of Briggs (though these seem to have picked up lately in price, and more people seem to be rejuvenating them rather than chucking them out), PT's, fake Honda and assorted Gardenline/Talon/Etc.

In any case, I love that mod Max. Pure genius. If only LPG was still going for 10 cents a litre.

With the Honda mowers I just keep the engines and throw the rest out , I've sold good running Honda motors for $25. and bought Honda motors at swap meets for $10. ,I see Honda mowers advertised really cheap ,a lot of people are going electric ,the council is already using an electric zero turn ride on mower and using an electric robotic mower.

LPG is 0 cents a litre for the mower , there is always someone throwing out old car tanks and BBQ bottles with gas in them, I probably have 50 litres in old tanks to use up already.

Cheers
Max.

Nice one. Using up the old gas tanks, smart thinking.

As for Electric, from what I have been hearing through the grape vine, a lot of countries are getting very protective with their lithium lately, and it could become a problem to source, so unless they move on to something else, we might be seeing battery prices go through the roof sooner or later.

I think it's only a matter of time until they use cheaper better battery technology .

Got the tachometer fitted and checked the cutting rpm mostly was cutting at 2990 rpm then in long grass I put the throttle
up to full at 3330 rpm.

It doesn't look like it's worth keeping the first gas mower now, just use it for parts .

Cheers
Max.

All this fanfare over this electric "revolution" suddenly taking the place of ICEs reeks of a giant sham.
As if electric power hasn't been around for a century already, they treat it like it's this new technology.

There's an agenda behind this I know it. After GM scrambled to destroy a promising electric vehicle in the 1990s (the subject of the documentary film Who Killed The Electric Car?) and remove any trace of it, now it's being flogged to death that's it's somehow the right thing to do.

I do not trust today's world one little bit. The writing was on the wall since the 1970s.

I'm hearing you MF, I'm hearing you good

California is banning the sale of petrol-powered outdoor machinery by 2024.

The mower the council is using now is the Mean Green Rival ,Mean Green have been manufacturing commercial Zero-turns in the USA since 2009, I just see this technology being greatly improved upon every decade.


I wouldn't say GM removed all trace of the EV1 as GM gave away 40 EV1 cars to Museums and Educational institutions after disabling
their powertrains but there is a complete powertrain one here in Australia still.

I think we are slow to take up new technology ,thanks to Tesla's work on wireless transfer of energy in the early nineteen hundreds
we then started using this technology over 100 years later eg. In September 2012, the Nokia 920 became the first commercially available smart phone to offer built-in wireless charging . The first commercialized dynamic wireless charging system was developed as early as 2009 by researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Cheers
Max.

Hi all,

Had a few little problems with the LPG mower to sort out.

1 The front wheels were skidding when cutting long wet grass ,the grass was getting stuck around the front wheels ,there
is room around the wheels (about 19mm from the wheel to the base)

I could just cut dry grass and shouldn't have a problem or try wheel scrapers or replace front wheels that are dished
out further or just reverse mount the front wheels so the dish is out more.

2 The wheel base is longer than standard and when I lift the mower side ways, with 2 wheels on the ground and 2 wheels
off the ground the base had a little flex .

I fixed the flex in the base by using 4 Rose joints , just had to wait 2 months for them to arrive from China ( Cheap to buy).

Made the rose joints into an A support to strengthen the base and also hold to LPG tank in place.

Also I have a spare LPG tank so when I run out of LPG you just swap the tank over and fill the empty bottle later.

Cheers
Max.

Interesting mower Max, not sure about the cost saving on the fuel though.

Hi Norm,

I think the lpg converters are about $70 now but I never need to buy LPG so you probably save $70. in 4 years compared to using petrol , just
depends how much grass you cut each year.


I also wanted a mower I could put in the boot of the car on a hot day and not stink the car out with petrol fumes.

Never have to pull the carby down to clean it because I've left old fuel in the mower.

Cheers
Max.

Hi Max,
I have had plenty of gas tanks here over the years from cars and running the BBQ etc but cutting up the tanks so I can get them down to the scrap is a nuisance

G'day Norm,

Years ago I'd put all the old tanks in the scrap metal bins that were left outside businesses to take old free metal but
now all the bins say no gas tanks and the scrap yards say no gas tanks ,so I asked a place that said no gas tanks
and at first they said they wouldn't take them if I cut them in half so I asked the person behind the desk to ask someone in
charge and they said no problem if they are cut in half but I might ring another yard to see if I can just cut a 6 inch line on
one side on the tank as it should be safe enough just with one cut.

Cheers
Max.

Hi Max,
I fill them with water and then run the grinder through them and then there is no problems.

G'day Norm,

Yes you need to do some things safely otherwise you'll get blown up or burnt ,I would use water for car petrol tanks but
with LPG I just use compressed air to fill the tank then let the air out and keep repeating the process until the air coming
out of the tank will not burn , it takes quite a few times filling them with air but is less messy, then I cut the tank up.

I've always thought about trying arc cutting rods but no idea how long or how well they work.

Cheers
Max

I have never tried those rods Max, I have oxy here but I use it only when I have to weld copper or brass. The only cutting I have is grinders with thin discs, I have often contemplated getting a small plasma cutter but I keep thinking that at my age would I get enough use out of it to cover the cost. Doing mostly hobby stuff and not making much money out of my equipment I can't justify it to myself.

Just trying to work out a way to cut the tanks up economically Norm as the scrap price would be lower than a new cutting disc.

One thing I picked up for free recently was some large diamond cutting discs so may have to see if they work.


Aldi have a Plasma cutter for $300 at the moment ,not sure of the amps .

I was given a 50 amp Plasma cutter that I was told just needs a new cutting torch ,about $27 for the torch so I should
probably get that working.


The only other cheap way I can think of is an axe /chizzle or a LPG / oxy cutter

Cheers
Max.

Hi Max,
the cutting discs cost me 60 cents each and would probably use 3 to cut a tank in half. Plenty of plasmas out there just have to make sure you can get the consumables for them

Hi Norm ,

I never knew you could buy them that cheap online ,I see if I buy 100 discs they are 62 cents each.

Problem I have is one LPG tank is 25 kg and price per kg is .076 cents for 1 kg ,25 x .076 cents is $1.90 for the tank
and for 3 discs x .62 cents is $1.87 and then the time cutting and the fuel cost to the scrap yard and it's not worth it , some scrap yards
here are 24 hours ,there is no one there after hours but you can dump your metal for free so I may as well
just dump the tanks for free without cutting them.


Cheers
Max.