OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Trimmers and Brushcutters Two Stroke Trimmers & Brushcutters Victa Tornado Plus - Pruner Extension

It is time to give one of the trees a quick haircut. Last couple of times it has been the Stihl MS250 in the cherry picker but this time it is regrowth that is a bit lower so cherry picker hire seems overkill.
I picked up these two off Gumtree today and gave them a quick test run when I got it home. All good with a new plug and fresh fuel/oil. The only problem us that the length is a touch short. I have a perfect piece of aluminium shaft to make an extension piece but I am not sure how the internal driveshaft is set up. Does anyone know?

On my way to pick up a few dead line trimmers tomorrow that I reckon I can salvage for parts to make the extension shaft. I reckon this might be it for new projects at the moment though, as I am still working on the Diplomat 590 rebuild and need to get and fit the smaller engine pulley to the Alroh mower.

AFAIK the Victa Tornado is just Victa's version of the 25.4 cc full crank trimmer that is sold by all the usual suspects (Pope, GMC, Sanli, Aldi/Gardenline, Parklander, and others). I have a couple of them, and like them: the best-idling, easiest priming and starting, and generally least troublesome trimmers I've found so far. That doesn't mean they'll be durable of course - I think the base engine is sound, but there are obvious design defects in other areas. Aldi sold them new for $70 full-retail. You don't get Echo quality for that kind of money.

The drive shaft on the straight shaft trimmers tends to be aluminium with a spline on each end. (Expensive trimmers have, or used to have, steel shafts instead of aluminium, and this is very desirable if you are going to use blades rather than only use line). To extend the shaft I think you are going to need a female-to-female splined joining piece. It would seem you will also need to extend by exactly the length of a standard shaft, since it is extremely difficult to cut your own spline.

I picked up the trimmers today. 4 bent shafts (2 Ryobis, a Homelite and one I am yet to identify) and a Pope 33cc straight shaft that was the pick of the bunch. This is the one that I planned to use as the extension piece.
Didn't get much time to work on it after spending most of the day collecting and cutting firewood but I was able fo strip it back to the shaft (which is 1.5m long). The driveshaft is splined both ends so I am going to use the female splined pieces from the clutch and trimmer sections and modify them fo match the Victa ez-fit connections.

Given the original question has been answered (and confirmed when I broke the old trimmer down) I have created a new topic in Tech Talk as I am now on to the modification stage.