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Collection, Preservation and Display of Old Lawn Mowers

Victa (UK) Prof 700

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Hello all

I have received a query via my website as follows...

I have acquired a Victa UK 700 Professional mower which has a 247cc two stroke ILO single cylinder engine.  It is a beauty, BUT, I can't find out anything about it.  I have had to have four cutter/flails made as I can't get spares anywhere.  Do you know anything about Victa UK (not to be confused with Victa Australia!)?  I attach a picture that might help.

If you can help perhaps best to post reply here for all to see & send e.mail to David direct who sent the query to me. .......

Email     DavidTC2@btinternet.com

 

Thanks

Clive

Forums

wristpin Thu, 08/05/2014

Victa UK were a marketing organisation for the Australian parent company and were based in Basingstoke.  Victa are now handled by EP Barrus of Bicester.**

JLO were acquired by Tecumseh who are no longer in the engine business and many JLO pars are becoming difficult to find.

** CORRECTION. Looks as though Barrus are no longer handling Victa as the name is no longer on their parts website.The Victa brand name now appears to be owned by Briggs and Stratton.

arnk Fri, 16/05/2014

I have been given this 2 stroke Victa to tinker with.  I am hoping all it needs is a new ignition lead, some new blades and a good clean.  Does anybody have any manuals for a Victa mower please?  I don't suppose blades are available? One is rusted away.

Al

 

 

wristpin Sat, 17/05/2014

Victa Uk produced various repair manuals and there were also ones produced by Gregoreys in Australia. Guess that on-line auction sites are  the place to look.

hortimech Sat, 17/05/2014

Hi, you can download an engine manual here:

http://www.outdoorking.com/pages/Victa/Engine/Late Model/Power Torque Engine Manual.pdf

[edit]

don't click the above, cut and paste it

[/edit]

Having said that, it is a very simple 2-stroke engine, in fact it only has half a crankshaft ;-)

if you remove the top cover you can get to every thing easily, it has electronic ignition and a very horrible plastic (for want of a better word) 'carburetor', the flywheel is under the engine, finally the governor works by suction.

 

 

 

wristpin Sat, 17/05/2014

While agreeing that it is a simple engine, it did have its quirks. 

To release the con rod from that "half crank" you need to either buy or make a tool to undo the crank pin and re-torque it when you are done.. Not advisable to tackle it with a drift and hammer !

An apparent ignition failure can be nothing more than a bad contact between the module and the engine casting. The module is riveted on and they were prone to corrosion creeping into the joint and causing a high resistance or total open circuit.

The carburettor while being plastic is not that horrible - just different! In their day they suffered far more from uninformed tinkering than any designed in horribleness! Read the manual.

It you have need to remove the flywheel take note of the re-fitting instructions using Loctite High Strength Retainer  and correct torqueing. Failure to do so can be disastrous!

One item that was prone to failure was the decompressor - two varieties , long and short depending on the cylinder head. Early ones took apart for cleaning/fitting new diaphragms. Later ones were a "sealed unit".

It's a long time since I've worked on a Power Torque engine but one thing I have not forgotten is the name of Victa UK's Service Manager of the day - Ivor Eels !

 

hortimech Sun, 18/05/2014

Sorry, but I cannot agree with you there, that carburetor was horrible, I had to deal with them from when they were first introduced on the original Victa engines instead of the simple carburetor.

They were a problem from the start and went through several updates before they even worked anything like right and even then, they never worked as well as the simple carburetor that it replaced.

wristpin Sun, 18/05/2014

We'll have to agree to disagree! We sold dozens of machines with the Power Torque engine and never experienced any abnormal incidence of carb problems over and above the usual contaminated and degraded fuel issues. Perhaps we were just lucky or the problems had already been sorted.