OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Off Topics The curious mower man

Hey all,

Had a funny experience today. I did my mothers lawn with her old 81 Victa Corvette. The buffalo was really thick, so it was low revs the whole way, no stopping it though. Meanwhile, the lawnmower bloke was doing the block next door. All I could hear (when I was throttling down to empty the catcher, which was often) was his 4 stroker cutting out constantly.

So I get out the front, and he gets out there too. Same thick grass, pretty long, and the Victa as usual just glides straight through it. Meanwhile he is constantly having to save his mower, pulling it back, restarting, lifting the blades, etc. I start catching him constantly trying to see what sort of strange old machine I am using that is making light work of this horrible grass haha. Wish I had caught it on camera.

Hi Sapper,
Few people now will remember the Victa ads where you "turn grass into lawn with a Victa" When I picked up some Victa 24's from down in the bush a few weeks ago I was talking to the bloke at the mower shop and he was saying that people in the bush still remember how good the 2 stroke mowers were/are and still want them.

Hey Norm,

Another observation I made when I was there; he had about 4 other mowers in his trailer, all fairly modern looking 4 strokers. I see a lot of mower guys having at least one, usually more, spare mowers with them. If I was in that business, mowing people lawns, I would stick a power torque as one one of them for just these kinds of lawns. The PT's are stupidly easy to service and keep running, and make light work of it instead of having to lift the blades, back away, etc, and can be gotten for a song. And they have 2 stroke fuel for their whipper snippers and blowers anyway, so that wouldn't be a problem.

Maxwestern was recently mentioning how OHV Hondas outperform the PT with more torque and use less fuel doing so.
Where the PT probably comes in is being able to tackle the more extreme stuff without stalling and keeps on going even when the revs drop considerably a lot of the time, as though it's about to stall.
Not to mention bang for your buck over a much harder to find or much more expensive Honda.

I spoke to a handyman from NZ who does mowing as well and he remembers the early 70s Victa two stroke his family had. He said it had plenty of go.

It's not always about what mower has the better engine ,you need to make sure the clippings are dispersed from the discharge chute so
the mower doesn't clog with grass causing the motor to stall.

https://www.lawnmowerfixed.com/mower-chute-clogs/

There's always advantages and disadvantages over using a 2 or 4 stroke motor..


Cheers
Max.

And every job is different so you need different mowers unless you are doing fortnightly lawn maintenance like Jims do