OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Finding and Swapping Tip & Curb Side Finds This Weekends kerb side finds

These are my finds from our local hard rubbish on Sunday. None of the 2 strokes have been straight fueled and the and the first 3 are up and running with minimal fixes. The Corsair and the Tornado are yet to be repaired but shouldn't take too much to get going.

Good haul BT. Wow to the thumb latch Corsair mower.

Makes me wish I went for a scrounge last night.

That's not bad for Kirb Side Salvage , all straight and no rust holes.

Cheers
Max.

we don't have them in Bundaberg, the council cant afford it. But people put stuff out anyway.......
speedy

Fixed the Corsair today. Fixed the starter, removed a screw that had fallen through the cowl and jammed itself between the coil and the flywheel, went through the carby, replaced the blades and changed the cowl(the sticker was mint so kept it for another project) and gave it a wash. Starts and runs fine and governs as it should.

It's now a Mustang. That cleaned up good.

Think I will move out your way BT, excellent score, I never find anything that good out my way.

The gated community of sandhurst has probably some of the best hard rubbish in Victoria, you can access %80 of the houses in the community, I used to work there and I know I passed many many mowers before I started collecting.

Then if you target the suburbs that are going from poorer to trendy around the midway point between inner and outer metropolitan Melbourne , those are good spots and then believe it or not some of the highest priced suburbs around the Boroondara Council but where the houses are heritage listed or the houses in the street are original, can be great places to find some absolute gold in hard rubbish around Melbourne.

Unfortunately down in my shire they don't do it, but I've stopped buying or taking on any "new" jobs until I get a few others done first and my arm fixed.

Hope that helps any road side hunters in metro Melbourne

Found these today on the way home from a mates place. Found the Ute first and turn 2 corners to find the VC’s with a sign on them that said “free”. Thank you very much. I wonder how much I’d get for them at the scrap yard.

It seems Victoria is a better bet for finding those elusive 1970s models that are now hard to obtain in NSW.

There are too many feverish collectors here who pounce on any VC with a frenzy.

Nice finds the lot of them!

I hope the scrap comment was with tongue planted in cheek. I wish one or two of those were lying around up my way.

Don't worry, the scrap comment was definitely tongue in cheek. They'll be going to a new home shortly.

BT, tongue in cheek just doesn't compute here.
Glad you clarified.

Much too good to go to the scrap man

Hi BT ,Mf ,Norm ,Sean and Ironbark

Yes they look in good condition for their age BT.


Just no interest with buyers in my area, I would have definitely scrapped the 2 VC mowers ,the most for a good running VC here is about $50 if you can sell it ,but could take a month or 2 to sell on Gumtree ,so just isn't worth the time and then I have to put up
with all the offers for $25.

Scrap is almost $10. for a base ,the starter you can get $20. and good set of wheels with caps $10 to $20

.Glad to have got 50 out of here in one go and just for the bases the scrap was more than what I paid for them.

The other funny thing is I had mag wheels advertised lower than the scrap value on Gumtree and couldn't
sell them so got paid more for scrap alloy .



Cheers
Max.

Hi Max,
yest I thought about advertising Commodore mag wheels a few months ago but didn't get any interest so they went to the scrappy

Hi Norm,

I had to use your scrappy Norm as they pay nothing for scrap in my area ,that's probably why mowers go cheap here.

Any Ford and Holden mags usually sell for at least a $100 for 4 if they are not damaged , they can take a while to sell but
I can see why people would just take the scrap value than wasting time finding a buyer.The cheapest wreckers is $28 per mag.

I had 5 Commodore rims but 3 were damaged and 4 mags for a 4 cylinder so not a lot of interest in older 4 cylinder
cars these days.

If the Commodore mags are original they can go for a fair amount these days as I sold the alloy centre caps for $200.

Cheers
Max.

Correct, not worth the trouble to get running. Purely for the collectors who are prepared to spend the time at no cost to them. It is a shame though, they are a bloody good machine.

Thanks BT, muchley appreciated, they will be put to good use. I will post up my efforts on the 4 stroke sidethrow

My pleasure Norm, good luck with them.

Some new treasure yesterday.
Replaced the stale fuel in the Stihl and away it went, nothing wrong with it.
The corvette is a beauty, sadly someone through it out because of the vibration due to the broken blade. Replaced the blades with a set of NOS ones I had here and mowed my lawn, what a great mower, they don't make them like they used to. Could someone date it for me please.
I haven't looked at the last 2, that'll be a job for today.

That’s the sort of fInds I love seeing.

There’ll be someone more knowledgeable than me along to date this but it looks to me to be a 1964 Model Corvette 2. Originally it would have had an impulse starter but it’s been fitted with a 1974 onward zip starter. Most likely after the pawls on the impulse starter wore out, as was common.

I wonder whether they also fitted the decompressor. I suspect that starter may not last as long as it otherwise would if they haven’t. Is it difficult to operate the pull start?

Decoding Victa serial number in this era is relatively straightforward compared with what came later.

We have here

464 15554

The first digit “4”,is the internal Victa model code in use at the time for that model.

The second two digits give the year, “64” being for 1964.

The other digits give the number made up to that point, so this was the 15554th mower made in that model.

Now to just remove that horrid looking zip starter and source an impulse set up. The further back you go, the nicer the engines sound.
To think these were being tossed out everywhere in favour of the plastic covered models, back in the early 1980s.
Beautiful score there BigTed. A shame the blades are no longer available -at least easily.

Hi bigted ,Ironbark and Mf

Some good finds there.

The 1964 Corvette is a bitsa ,the base is wrong for the engine ,as the side port should be on the opposite side for later 1964
Corvette mowers like this. When the port is on the other side it's used for edging and is not a side discharge port.

The engine is missing it's front mount air cleaner and obviously the starter should be the impulse starter , I'm not a fan
of the impulse starters ,I have early mowers that run this starter and they work fine without a decompressor.

The impulse starters were only designed to work for a few years but a recoil starter will outlast the engine.

The orange starter being from a Sunbeam mower.

Cheers
Max.

Thanks for the reply Gents, no, its not that hard to start and it hasn't had a decompressor fitted.
The orange starter will be removed and replaced by a green or white one. Impulse starters are a PITA and almost impossible to find in good working order.
So my guess is somewhere along the way someone re-engined this later model corvette with a 64 model motor.
P.S. the powertorque Victa Rapier just needed a starter re rope and the Sanli needed a carby clean and a new spark pug boot.
All in all a good little bounty..

Cheers, Ted

I do agree, not a fan either. Just that the bright orange starter looks too modern and out of place on that mower and just makes it scream 'bitsa'.
Congratulations on getting the trio working.

Interesting to hear it’s ok to start. I asked because I have a 1970 utility that was originally fitted with an impulse starter which someone has adapted to the Victa 18 style manual wind pull rope. The spinning exposed pulley doesn’t thrill me in terms of safety and it tends to catch on bushes when I give it a bit of a run.

I have a couple of options with it, take the impulse starter off a spare, excellent condition, mid-60’s Corvette engine and shroud assembly I have kicking about, or adapt it to take one of my several early 70’s zip starters.

I might try the zip starter if the absence of a decompressor doesn’t cause a problem.

The lack of a decompressor won't cause any problems, the biggest issue you may have is a broken starter rope every 5 years or so.

Here's a few more from hard garbage on Sunday night

Cheers, Ted

I just fitted a motor without a decomp valve fitted on a 24 and it starts very easily. It also had a G3 carby on it so I fitted a G4 on it and it is a great easy starting machine