I've followed this forum for some time but just become a member .... thanks for all the knowledge and interesting posts I've seen up until now.
I've been pushing Victas ever since age of 5 or 6 in about 1961 ... starting with my uncle's Victa 18 Special. After an unsuccessful foray in the early 60s with an H G Palmer 4 stroke, in the mid 60s my father acquired (in my opinion) the best Victa ever being a 160CC Corvette 2 with impulse starter.
That was eventually replaced with a 1980 Victa Charger with 3.5HP B&S (from David Jones George St Sydney Homewares store) which now looks the worse for wear ... but is still going strong 42 years later. I struggle to drive past any abandoned mower and some 15? years ago I stopped for a V137 Series 70 Mark III Sports (G3 Carby) which I understand is 160cc. The owner had just given away the catcher however I picked one up from Earlwood Lawnmowers Sales & Service at William Street, Earlwood - legends.
It has graced our holiday shack since that time and has served alongside the Charger. However, I recently turfed a steep embankment and the 4 stroke with a wet sump is not up to working on its side and I now need to rely on the trusty 2 stroke Sports ... which has a problem ... Ever since acquiring the Sports it would start and barely keep running, hunting and fading at a slow idle until it warmed up. Once warm, the throttle could carefully be advanced and gradually it would sustain higher revs. However 2 years ago it just refused service altogether.
Since then I have stripped, cleaned reassembled the carby; replaced all ignition components (coil, condensor, points), also replaced rusted out muffler. After reassembly including timing, it took time to get started and demonstrated the same low rev hunting and fading for a few seconds ... except it did once rev right out which encouraged me to believe that the timing etc was all as it should be. I've removed and substituted the ZIp decompressor with a spare spark plug to check if that was the issue. Have checked for spark with the plug out and grounded and there is a reliable strong spark when turning the engine over. Have sloshed a shot of fuel down the air inlet pipe to establish whether it is a carburation / starving issue - no effect. I'm at a loss and am wondering whether it is a compression issue such as crankcase seals, piston rings ??? Maybe I should put some oil down the bore to seal the rings and test it again ? They are generally to simple to sort ... it's generally either no spark or no fuel !
I love the old series Victas and am sure this has more service yet to give. Any suggestions as to where to from here would be much appreciated. Cheers, Ross
