OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum OutdoorKing Showcase At last - the $1 mower.

I bought a Rover 200ES for 99 cents in an online auction - no one else wanted it because the seller said the 'starter cord was stuck'. I bought it for spares for my Victa (Rover motor is 92508, Victa is 92908, which is only a carburetor difference, but there is also a different blade plate drive flange). As I expected it had been run out of oil and had seized, but to my surprise I freed it up in 2 minutes. It started immediately and ran like a new one. I decided it had to remain a $1 mower - no new or used parts - so I repaired the broken throttle control, straightened the horribly bent blades and ground them way back past the cracks, and made a pair of handle clamp nuts. However the catcher doesn't fit at all well - must be for a different model. Anyone had any success reworking plastic catchers? See picture.

My first mower when I moved in to this house was exactly the same except I had a 3.5hp quantum on it.

As for the catcher, it looks like it could be a victa one, a rover one looks very very similar until you have one side by side to the other.

Another difference between that motor and one on a victa is the end of the crankshaft is longer on a rover, however if you needed a new carburettor, magneto, etc it would be great for parts.

Cheers.

Thanks Joe, you've put me on the right track I think. That output shaft looked longer on the Rover, and now you've confirmed it, that's a deal-breaker on the idea of putting the Rover engine aside as a spare for the Victa. I'll try to find a place to stash the whole Rover mower for the hopefully distant day when the Victa dies. I slightly bent the side flanges on the rear grass flap of the Rover, and got it to where it will allow me to put the catcher on properly, and still close the flap when the catcher is off, but it takes a fist-bump to make each of those things happen. It's probably the right catcher, just an overly-tight fit. The previous owner had stopped using the catcher and pushed the side flanges in a bit to make life easy. Even with the tight fit it's easier than putting the catcher on my old green-and-white Victa, which is a complex job of three dimensional geometry.

So far comparing the Rover with the Victa is a bit like comparing a Russian car with a German one. They each have their advantages, but it's a bit of an effort to get your head around moving away from the German one.

I cant guarantee this but from memory so long as you use the rover base plate with the rover mower it may fit the victa base, otherwise you can use a couple of small spacers to mount the engine up a bit.

Do you happen to know the actual difference in output shaft length, say from crankcase to blade plate mounting flange? I can't measure it without taking the blade plates off both mowers.

I found the answer on the internet, which is what I should have done in the first place. B & S make two standard output shaft lengths. Measured from the crankcase-to-mower mounting surface to the end of the shaft, they are 62 and 80 mm for the engines with 7/8"diameter shaft (i.e. ordinary lawnmower engine) , so the difference between the long and short shafts is 18 mm. I'll need to compare the heights of the Rover and Victa engine mounting plates - if the difference is less than 18 mm, an adaptor plate or some sheetmetal shims will be required. Shouldn't be any big deal I guess.
Reference for shaft length data:
http://www.briggsbits.co.uk/acatalog/Replacement_Engines_and_Shortblocks_.html

grumpy you do have another motor that goes on the early Victa mowers that is a Briggs & Stratton 3.75 sprint which has a shaft diameter of 7/8" and is 1 3/8" (35mm) long.

I have a new motor sitting on the display stand which I will be selling at cost (US made).

Just a little more information that you can add.

That means my 1976-built 3.5 hp 92908 may have had this extremely short shaft, which would make the long shaft on the Rover engine something of a mismatch. (I'd need a very thick adaptor plate, and end up with a funny-looking Victa). Sounds as if I'll have to measure the actual shaft length on my ancient Victa (green base and catcher, white B&S 92908 engine). I do recall that my Victa's shaft looks very short, and you can't get a socket spanner between the top of the blade plate and the mower base the way you can on the Rover. It makes oil changes a real pain, but that short output shaft looks a lot less likely to get bent than the long one on the Rover. I'd better drag the mower out of the shed and make with the measuring equipment. Sigh. Thanks Bruce, both for the tip-off and the information that you may have a brand new replacement sitting in your shop.

Bruce, I checked the shaft length on the mower, and I think we are talking about different measurements. The B&S Installation Guide says "The lengths quoted for engine crankshafts are taken from the engine's mounting face where it is bolted to the equipment, not the length emerging from the engine." Consequently I quoted them that way, at 62 mm and 80 mm for the short and long shaft engines. The length of visible shaft protruding past the crankcase oil seal on my Victa is only about 35mm, while on the Rover it is much longer. However that turns out to be just because the oil sump extends much further downward on the Victa engine; the Rover engine, which was made 7 years later, has a shallow sump and a dipstick instead of a filler plug - the whole crankcase is different. Despite the very short visible shaft, the length of my Victa's crankshaft measured the B&S way, from mounting flange to end of crankshaft, came out at 87 mm. My measuring technique was pretty messy, so I may be a few mm off, but it appears I have a long-shaft engine despite the deep sump. I wonder if your Sprint 375 isn't a long shaft engine with a deep sump too? That may mean it will fit into any long-shaft mower, it will just be a pain to change the oil.

Hmm, not sure what all the fuss is there. Heard a few stories about this.

An alloy chassis Victa i assume.

Right thumb on the door lever holding it half open, catcher over the axle and hook it over the lip on the back of the machine, push down with your thumb on the flap lever and the tab on the catcher will click as it locks in.
Want the catcher off, press the tab on the catcher and the door will drop.




So Grumpy, did this mower ever cost you more than $1???

The Rover 200ES didn't cost more than $1, because I haven't used it. I put it through commissioning trials when I un-seized it, then I applied the B&S medium-term storage process: run it dry of fuel, change the oil, and squirt a bit of engine oil through the spark plug hole, then stash it away for later. Later has never come: I just use my 1976 Victa all the time, because I like it better.

The trick with my Victa (which is alloy chassis) is that the catcher always hangs up on the right side when I put it on the mower. I follow the procedure you described, but I have to push the catcher toward the right side of the mower to clear the rear door. I also have to ensure the door-holder on the inside of the catcher engages the door. Then the catcher won't go on the mower, because the bottom right corner of the catcher hits the side of the grass chute on the mower base. I have to hold the top of the catcher to the right, and tilt the catcher so that the bottom right corner will go into the grass chute. Then I wriggle it forward and see if the front edge of the catcher drops down neatly in front of the retention ridge on the back-top of the mower base. If it drops right down flush, it will stay on. If it hangs up a few mm, it will fall off as soon as I start mowing. It is workable, but a thoroughly lousy piece of engineering design. If cars were made like that, most of them would be returned on warranty to get that problem fixed. The fix would involve reshaping the bottom right corner of the catcher, or enlarging that corner of the mower base grass chute.

Id say a good way to fix it would be busting off that door grabbing bit in the RH corner of the catcher.

Or get a twin handle catcher offf a later model alloy base mustang.

Without the door-grabbing bit, the door would be closed whether the catcher is on or not. It supports the weight of the door in the open position. I could probably make it a lot easier to put the catcher on by grinding away the right hand lower corner of the grass chute on the mower base, to give the catcher some clearance, but I dislike the idea of modifying a 1976 mower that looks original (green base and catcher, white engine). I can use it successfully by wrestling with it a bit each time I put the catcher on and cursing Victa's design engineer each time I do it. That is a workable solution, and one that I usually adopt when I use vintage equipment like that. Cursing is a reasonable substitute for redesigning the machine. If you don't do that, you end up modifying every vintage machine you handle, destroying their eventual value to collectors. When I can, I try to resist the temptation.

Fair enough.

I had a green base mustang for years.

Ive had a few of the older alloy base ones through here lately with the extra little flap at the bottom of the door. That was the first i had seen of the catchers with that door clip bit in it. They seem to go together.

On the old mustang it was just a case of sit the catcher on and push the door lever hard down and it would grab the door, push the button the catcher to take the catcher off and the door drops.

The ones with the door catcher things are a bit of a case of everything has to be at the right angle and held just right including your tongue or they dont go together.

Pehaps if you got a different catcher, might be a bit easier. A later twin grip mustang catcher, those things are huge. I got an alloy base catcher complete with a load of dried up dead half rotten grass for free as a christmas present from my scrap guy.

Ive found a few old mowers around the traps, usually the catchers are the bit showing the age of the machine.

Cheers, Bob.

My door does have the little flap at the bottom Bob, so your theory is holding up so far. My catcher isn't huge by any means. Fortunately I have a weird blade plate with some kind of turbo feature - the grass is blasted into the catcher fairly hard, so it will hold a fair amount of grass, or at least it will if the grass is short. Long grass doesn't stack as well in the catcher, and takes up more space.