That sounds like a mandatory carby pull down to me or a swap if you're lucky enough to have a spare snorkel and carby assembly ready to go. I'm lazy and will always choose the latter over the former lol.

My green catcher like yours has the start of lower lip wear showing. These need to avoid rocks and branches as the lip will suffer for it and the population of good thumb latch catchers without grotesque back yard repairs will continue to plummet at a greater rate than good thumb latch bodies.
I have Vortex beater I got free and it has catcher repairs and I still love it warts and all. It adds character and it still looks impressive to my eyes despite obvious flaws.

These are the best looking mowers in the world and I continue to marvel at their styling to this day since my fascination with Victa thumb latch series began in 1988 when a family we knew had a 1974 VC 125 mark III.


Ahh, if only victa had kept producing the thumblatch catcher series, they would be in better shape today!