OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Walk Behind Lawn Mower Frames Four Stroke Lawn Mower Frames Honda SP - Chassis Replacement

Hi Norm Tyler and Mf,

I threw out a 20 inch 505 victa the other day ,it had a broken base where the handle bolted on but could have been repaired.

Didn't know you were still looking for a base Norm.

The 505 Professional mowers are 20 inch and can be pushed if the Sp doesn't work ,this one was given to me last
week with another 2 stroke mower ,I was talking to a guy that said he just bought a house and the owner left a couple
of old mowers he didn't want so I said Yeah I'll take them. Wasn't much wrong with them as both run good with minimal work.

Two Victa tornado mowers welded together ,it should be nice and light to push.

Cheers
Max.

Hi Max,
I hadn't been looking for a base for it all the time, had given up looking and I was going to fit the motor on a self propelled Ariens base I had here but that all turned ugly when I couldn't get the boss off the Honda which has a 1" shaft. I had mu puller on it with 6 tons on it and it made not the slightest attempt to move, so that project came to an abrupt halt. Yesterday afternoon I thought about joining the 2 Tornado bases together and that is nearly finished now, hopefully throw some hammertone on it tomorrow and I can get out of my hair. Hopefully I will get $10 for the base as they are so heavy, all they are good for.

Bodywork is now all done, clean and paint it and it should look a treat

Nice neat job Norm, especially like the steel front reinforcement

Also keen to see the handles side mount

Better get that paint on fast before the bare metal rusts. Another added complication I noticed was the holes for the mounting bolts would have shifted from each other. I can see a plate had been added to fix that.
The rear flap hinges will need to be repositioned too.

Yes this Twin Tornado or is it a Hurricane as it's bigger than a Tornado is forming nicely now Norm , not sure
if you will go for an engine adaptor plate or just weld some more metal in the centre .

The Honda SP are heavy ,I just disposed off a couple myself , the darn things wouldn't fit in my car when I picked them up and
lifting them onto the roof rack wasn't fun ,I got lazy after I tied them to the roof rack and just drove everywhere with
2 mowers on the roof with handles extended out until I could be bothered lifting them down.

Maybe a new Decal on the front when this mower is finished.

Cheers
Max

Mower is pretty much finished been painted everything has been fitted, getting the engine bolt holes was a bit of a pain as I had to do a couple of test fits and some hole slotting so that I could get blade clearance at all points which was a bit tricky as I didn't want to have to cut the blades down. Handles are only fitted with one bolt at the moment as I'm waiting for my mate to come over so he can tell me at what height he wants them.
MF the rear flap is fitted, that was an easy bit, I used standard Victa hinges so I could put them where they had to go and the left corner was all rusted out as normal so I rebuilt both corners so I could mount the handles on the sides as all other manufacturers do. That way it will be good and solid.
I told my mate if he wants another one built he will have to find a couple of bases

I forgot the Tornado has those weird combination handle mounting brackets and flap hinges.
I have two Tornado bases sittinghere, one with a Briggs Qantum and the other with an EcoTorque 2 stroke with missing pieces.

Mower has now gone back to work, interesting to see how it goes. Second bolt fot the handelbasr was fitted once my mate decided what height he wanted them

That grey paint makes it look like a genuine Honda mower. Excellent result!

Good thing with that paint is just brush it on and half an hour it is dry

That base is better than when it left the factory. You could say it's twice what it once was.
It'd be good if a Honda badge could be attached. Perhaps off the original.

Lovely finish Norm. Only thing he might need eventually is those tornado wheels changed for some with a proper bearing.

Interested to see how long it lasts in a contractor setting - is he rough on machines?


MF, half the time the letters come off the honda decks if looked at the wrong way.

I have a bitsa one that is a H DA

Tyler, the Tornado wheels are ball bearing already or so I believe.

Make it badge-less then. The new owner will realise what it is. Very pleased to see such a creative solution to utilise this Honda motor again.

MF, Tornado wheels are very similar to Talon ones, no two are the same, mixed bag of diameters, hubcaps are all over the place and about half them don't have bearing wheels. I'm guessing they will be a problem in the future.
Tyler, he is rough on everything, has no mechanical sympathy on anything, I have been repairing his motorbikes for years. He just bought a new Enfield twin so that means I shouldn't have to work on that for a while. I got him onto an Ariens self propelled last week and it has a Kawasaki motor on it and it has an oil filter so should be well capable of handling working on steep slopes because it is not relying on the splash feed to the bearings in the motor

Victa really cheaped out with alot of the tornado stuff. I have 2x PT tornados which are both of lower end - one is a pace the other a charger I think.

Both have those same wheels with that style hubcap, and neither even have a removable nylon bushing - just a holde drilled into the wheel. Nylon is fairly self lubricating, but this stuff obviously isn't. They are 15 year old, one has done little work, the other its fair share, but they both have more slop in the wheels than any other victa I have ever seen.

I pulled the wheels off the better one, put a bit of PTFE bearing grease one the axles and will see what affect it has.
Then they somehow chew through the rabbit ear type circlip things, so there is lateral play as well

Norm, is a shame his is rough with everything. Hopefully he doesn't break the chassis in half, but I think you have beefed it up enough to hopefully prevent that.

Never understand how people can be so careless with tools of their trade that they rely on.

I have amassed 6 or so pairs of 8" Tornado wheels off disposed rusted out chassis in decent shape, but you're not wrong about the caps. I only have one uniform set of undamaged caps including the wheels on two complete Tornado mowers. All have ball bearings though with two main tread designs from memory.
One solution is to fit a different pair each side or turn a disc of PVC and screw them on with a pair of screws.

I know that down the track I will have to put better wheels on it which means pull the axles out, cut the Victa stubs off and weld new ones in to suit whatever wheels we decide on. I think my welding of the base should stand up to it even though I only had my arc to do it. Lot easier if my mig was working

The victa easytrak wheels with sealed ball bearings are pretty hardy, I had a tornado with them on, and fitted them straight onto a 18in later on and from memory the went straight on

I am impressed you did that to that standard with an arc welder

Hi Tyler and Norm,

Is an arc welder a good choice for a beginner or should the deep end approach be the go if I'm going to do anything more ambitious than a small spot of welding? I may have answered my own question after seeing this job with the mower.
Any minimum power rating I should aim for?