OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Restoring, Customising and Modifying Tech Talk Victa Manuals - Gregory's/Scientific Publications

Australian technical publisher Scientific Publications has published a number of Repair/Workshop Manuals which apply to Victa mowers/engines over the past 40 or so years, mostly under their 'Gregory's' banner.

Victa's last self-published workshop manual came out in 1971 [the 'blue cover' one], then Gregory's #102 became the Victa-endorsed 'official' manual, from 1974.

There are two series of manuals in this category; the 'Victa' series, and the 'Small Engines' one - these words appear in the titles.

All of them cover the basic 125cc and 160cc full crank 2-stroke engines, except for #426.

Four-stroke engine coverage is essentially according to the publication year; e.g. the earlier 'Victa' manuals cover Lauson and Kirby-Lauson 4-strokes. This series does not cover Briggs & Stratton engines at all, but the 'Small Engines' series does cover the vertical shaft models, up to 5hp.

Here's a table I've drawn up, to summarise these manual editions.


Basically, more pages = more comprehensive model coverage. The term 'covers' in the Notes generally denotes the manuals which were the first edition to include info on those carby/engine models.

Availability: All except for #426 are out of print. The best source is eBay AU, and the occasional one pops up in motor bookshops.
Some of them are available to borrow from various libraries; the National Library of Australia Online Catalogue is the best way to track these down.

G'day Glo Mod Gadge

I would say that that simple table conceals a considerable
amount of research time there. Thank you.

For those seeking repair advice, many forget that the local library
may hold the answer. As you say, the National Library catalogue
can locate these manuals to specific libraries - perhaps in your area.

-----------------------
Jack

Libraries. I thought they were going the way of the Tasmanian tiger.

Righto folks, there has been ample time for comments I feel, so I'll now lock this thread.

As always, re-opening can be requested by Notifying the Mods.

Thanks for reopening this thread so i can extrapolate a little further on the original list by Gadge and with pictures of all bar 2. The Scott Bonnar 97 (1977) and the Small Engines 199 (1990). I'm putting all the mower one's in this reply and the Small Engines in a reply to this post.

Mowers:
-Scott Bonnar series (to 1977) number 97
-Rover series (1978) number 99
-Mowers series (1971) number 100
-Rover series (1978) number 101
-Victa series (1974) number 102
-Victa series (1977) number 103
-Victa twin and lightweight series (1977) number 161
-Victa rotary mowers series (1955-81) number 200
-Victa rotary mowers series (1955-84) number 220
-Victa rotary mowers series (1955-87) number 403
-Rover rotary mowers series (1992) number 422
-Victa rotary mowers series (1955-91) number 424

The scientific publications number 100 covers all victa models but is only named "Mowers" on its cover and spine. So technical its a victa workshop manual but it's not officially named VICTA.

PS: I could only collect the one's I have because this thread gave me a starting point of what names and numbers of the manuals to look for.  So a massive thanks to Gadge for his original first post on this thread that led me to find manuals like Small Engines 112 that I didn't even know existed.

These are the small engine manuals by Scientific Publications and Gregory's guides:

-Small Engines (1974) number 112
-Small Engines (1982) number 199
-Small Engines (1990) number 199
-Small Engines (1992) number 426

One picture I wasn't able to fit In the previous reply was the Victa Twin and Lightweight series (1977) number 161.

Again a massive thanks to everyone who was involved in creating and contributed to this thread and for reopening it for me to put in a little bit of extra info on it!!!!

I can now show a picture of the number 97 Scott Bonnar rotary mower scientific publications manual.

I'll throw in a picture of my collection all there except number 97 but not for too much longer 🤞

So I decided to buy the second edition of small engines manual number 199.

A few small cosmetic differences between the first and second edition covers, there is an extra 20 pages in the second edition and it has the second edition copyright year of print.

Mine also says first reprint 1991, so this could mean I need 1 more to complete the set.

Finally I now have, as far as I know, all of the rotary mower Scientific Publications / Gregory's Guides after I hunted down a copy of the elusive Scott Bonnar number 97 about 2 months ago but it finally arrived today!
Now for some reason I have a suspicion that numbers 98 and 423 could be rotary mowers manuals too but I can't seem to find any information to suggest this to be true but I can't remember finding out what number 98 and 423 are manuals for. If anyone thinks there could be information in any of these manuals that might be helpful, please don't hesitate to contact me and I can scan individual pages on a person to person basis.

So here is a picture of all of these manuals together, my copy of Scott Bonnar number 97 and a picture of all of my GG/SP manuals including my small engines manual in numerical order from right to left with some of my collectables.

These are all of the rotary mower ones as far as I know! If anyone else has information otherwise I'd love to hear it!!! Otherwise case closed and a complete set for me!!!

-Scott Bonnar series (to 1977) number 97
-Rover series (1978) number 99
-Mowers series (1971) number 100
-Rover series (1978) number 101
-Victa series (1974) number 102
-Victa series (1977) number 103
-Victa twin and lightweight series (1977) number 161
-Victa rotary mowers series (1955-81) number 200
-Victa rotary mowers series (1955-84) number 220
-Victa rotary mowers series (1955-87) number 403
-Rover rotary mowers series (1992) number 422
-Victa rotary mowers series (1955-91) number 424