OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Walk Behind Lawn Mower Frames Four Stroke Lawn Mower Frames Chonda Engines on mainstream bases

I am after some options primarily surrounding Chonda mowers and people breaking/ loosing catchers.

More than 50% of the Chonda�s I find with cheap catchers are either damaged or simply not returned with the mower at the local junkyard.

Personally I like to keep all mowers as original as possible. Meaning: keeping the correct shaft lengths, blade bosses, plates and blades with the correct mower. Whilst many don�t mind changing them it is not something I like to do mainly to ensure the safe operation of the mower and people know what blades to buy down the track.

1) At present I continually can�t find any Sanli (Lazercut & Powermulch) catchers.

Does anyone had any suggestions about retro fitting catchers. I understand K Marts Gardenline fit this model but I simply haven�t been able to find any unwanted items at my local recycling yard. I want to do something that�s easy and safe so the engines don�t get wasted. In nearly all instances when set up correctly these engines are very good runners and produce 1 pull starts

2) GMC/ 909 branded mowers with the plastic box like catcher (that breaks easily). GMC�s with the 375 Briggs Engines I normally transfer to a Masport or Rover base and then add the correct bosses and blade plates but I have never transferred a chonda across as the shafts are often quite different.

Can anyone please share their experiences with transferring Chonda�s onto more mainstream bases whilst keeping the correct blade bosses and plates set up which were originally sold with the mower.

Also any safety considerations I should take would be appreciated.

I�ll add some photos of the mowers I am talking about later tonight.

Cheers
Jaffa

Hi,

I recently swapped a chonda onto a rover base. As long as you use the correct spacers when mounting the engine it looks odd but works well. I used the engine from a lawnbeetle plastic waste of time base) which has a metal plate underneath the body which shields the engine/user from flying dirt, clippings and stones. If you are going to mount an engine higher than the original engine for that body make sure you think about the gaps being created otherwise someone could get very dirty, angry or worse badly injured.

No reason you cant do it if you do it intelligently.

Pete.

G'day Jaffa & Pete, other members,
I here what you are saying about the cheaper bases with wobbly wheels and everything snapped off and even cheaper catchers on the newer wave of imports.
I think the engines are great, smooth running, quiet, easy to start, lower emissions.

I had a mower called an Icon with a trashed base, drained water from the fuel bowl and the engine ran nicely.
Decided to put the engine on a Rover base.



With the engine mounted up, the blades were 10mm below the bottom lip of the base.
I used the 20mm Victa spacers, used to lift 4 stroke engines(you may have seen them clipped into a plastic ring).
I cut them in half.
I needed a longer mounting bolt and the mounting bolts from a Victa power torque where 12mm longer with the same thread.




I am not too sure about the end result, but I will test it out around here to see how it goes.

Hi Mark,

That gap in your 3rd photo is what I was referring to. Be careful as that large a gap could see stones etc flying out and up at a dangerous rate. Other than that the fitment looks good and well done. Perhaps get some steel mesh, cut it into a circle and fit it underneath the deck. (I'll try get a photo of the plate I mentioned in my earlier post) to stop stones etc flying up.

As I have lost an eye through injury myself I can tell you it's not pleasant and all care should be taken to avoid projectiles.

Pete.

Yes, I agree.
I can try some mesh.
If I am not happy, I will try a different type of base.
Thanks for that.
I am interested in any other options that are safer.

Here is the mesh I put on.
Next time I try this I will make up a plate that sits under the engine.

Thanks for the contributions guys.

I have swapped a few of the new Scott Bonnar (Chonda�s) onto the older style rover bases (Just like mark electric�s) because the bases were wrecked. I was able to keep the blade plates, bosses and blades original so the transplants where very neat and tidy in this instance. There were no issues with the crankshaft length or need for spacers so safety wise that was all good. I find it also makes it easy for the new owner when purchasing blades in the future. Maybe I a little pedantic but I do like to keep things reasonably original where possible.

I wanted to get some more thoughts on this subject because these chonda�s in my experience are excellent engines (just like Mark stated). They are easy to start and maintain when users are shown how to correctly operate the units. It�s just a pity the bases are very poor quality and tend to fall apart after 1-2 years along with the catchers.

Pete (Wetsocks)
I like your comments the heights of engines � these where the thoughts I was after. I will note this for future installations

Potential for adapting different catcher flaps.
- Where people break flimsy catchers I am curious if anyone has adapted more common catcher flaps safety to continue using Chonda bases? Or perhaps you just might have a suggestion? I am not a fan of wasting equipment that only needs minor modification to become safe and fully operational again.

Any other thoughts would be appreciated from people that have done it before would be more than welcome. I have done a fair few myself but they are not major changes, only minor as I mentioned above.

Here is an example of another pretty sweet Chonda I picked up but yet again no catcher. My understanding is this base is exactly the same as the GMC's so I have been looking for a catcher but no luck.
The mower runs really well, I just hope it can go to a new home to use as a mulcher I guess.

If anyone has some good suggestions about what to do with this apart from sell it without a catcher that would be great!

Thanks
Peter