OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Restoring, Customising and Modifying Victa Walk-Behind Rotary Mowers Stopping a Power Tech

As per my Curb Side find thread - I picked myself up a Victa Power Tech during the local Cleanup day.

Good nick - I gave it a Carb Service and now its up and running OK - if a little fast and unresponsive to the throttle.

I can't turn it off via tht throttle so I had a really good read of:

Guide to the Victa G4/LM Cut-Out Assembly

which was great help - but my mower still won't turn off.

I gather the two wires need to make contact, thus shorting out the ignition and thus the mower turns off.

I also gather that as the Throttle Cable pulls - the cam in the carby turns - levers one of the pins enough to contact the other one.

I pulled the carby down and watched this happen - but I wasn't convinced the cam was moving the pin enough to make contact.

As suggested in the Guide to the Victa G4/LM Cut-Out Assembly, I made all sorts of adjustments and then checked by pulling the starter and watching for spark.

No matter what I did there was always spark.

In exasperation I actually pulled both wires out of the carby and joined them physically and pulled the starter - SPARK!

I can only assume that the wire that is supposed to be grounded isn't, but they disappear into the engine and I don't really want to strip it down to chase the ends of the wires.

I was thinking I might use my multimeter to check for continuity between the carby end of the wire and some part of the engine block - if I get a reading to say its continuous, then I don't know where that leaves me.

Can anyone tell me where the other end of those wires connect to? I guess one end goes to the electrics, but the other will go to an earth won't it?

Or have I got the whole thing completely confused??

hey polybus .. sometimes they come unclipped from the coil too . then no matter what you try it wont shut down . sometimes you can see if you look under the cylinder head deep in the bowels in there if its not full of grass clippings , might have fallen off in there they do but not often .

under the head in between the tin plate and bottom of engine , tip it on its side , blow out thr rubbish and with a torch have a good look , might be our problem hiding in there
hope it works and good luck mate



, Dave

VCCOMM you're a legend!!

Check out this photo....




Yep!! I'm assuming that is the cut off switch connector you can see in there just swinging in the breeze.... Well its a bit blurry - but Im sure you can make it out....

I'll go out and connect it and report later...


Thanks heaps


Polybus

Tricky little job connecting that up - took a very long pair of long nose pliers and some patience.

But now I can get spark/no spark depending on the position of the throttle - which is a good result.

Not sure what I've done in the process though - now the mower will fire up, run for about 1 - 3 seconds and then just die.... it was running well before - but a little bit fast - I even mowed my lawn with it.



What a crappy hobby this is

Polybus

aaaaaw now come on hahaha ya love it i know , recheck the kill wires now you disturbed everything , might just be touching with vibrations this time .
and yessss i normally take the engine off easier for me and my podgy fingers

Nah its not the Kill Wires - I can check them and get spark/no spark by varying the throttle.

I noticed it would run longer the longer I left it between starts - then it just dies out between about 1 - 7 seconds.

To me it sounded like fuel.

So I pulled the fuel line off - plenty of fuel coming out the end of the fuel line.

Took the Primer Cover off - Float looks OK - but......

for some unknown reason the Needle seems to have swollen - and it now its quite a tight fit in its little hole - loose enough for the float to lift it, but too tight to slide back down again under its own weight as the float drops. So when the float rises - it pushes the needle up, cuts off the fuel, but as the fuel level drops, and hence the float drops, the needle remains stuck, only allowing a trickle of fuel through.

Not enough fuel to run the engine - but if I leave it for 30 seconds or more, enough fuel trickles through to run the engine for a while and when the fuel runs out, the engine stops.

Can't figure out why the needle would have swollen though.

I'll go get a couple of new ones.

Is there any difference between the needles based on colour - I know there are black ones, yellow ones, red ones - do they have a different taper?? Or just different materials. The one I have in it is black - it is brand new - the one it replaced was yellow.


Polybus

you replaced the primer cap ? if its non genuine use the black , they seem to work in almost anything and yes there are different needles some fit , most dont but im sure another member will say something too , here i have luck MOST times just using black and yeah did it too me last week here the machine was allgood but left it a while and same thing happened ran until it used the chamber of fuel then wait .......start and stop again . changed it to a black and gave it back to them running sweeeeeet .

love a challenge huh

Got a new needle - moves freely in its little housing, moves with the float.

While I was up there also got a new Crankcase O-Ring - the one that lives under the starter.

Engine starts and continues running fine now - and I can stop it via the throttle - but its still running faster than I would think is normal.

But then again - I've been reading a lot about these things - because I'm not familiar with them - much newer than I am used to.

Given what I have read - perhaps it is running normally....

Questions:

1: With this model Power Tech - should I expect it to idle at low revs?
2: Should (and this seems like a stoopid question) - Should I expect it to run like the good old fashion mowers - ie: use the throttle to increase revs/decrease revs - some of the things I have been reading say these things only have two speeds - stop and go - and the governor does all the work.
3:The throttle does virtually nothing to the revs - yet when I pull it apart I can see the throttle cable spinning the cam inside the carby.

I just don't know enough about these things - I'd hate to think I'v e been stuffing around with it for a couple of days now and its running as its supposed to!!!

Polybus

Power *torque

some can idle really low to the point of stalling, 2 strokes foul up idling anyway, if your goig to leave it longer than emptying the catcher, switch it off.

Run it on full throttle at all times, the engine is goverened to a speed, if you hit thicker stuff it will open the poppet valve in the carb to let more fuel/air in.

The newer power torques run close at an idle speed until they are under load then you will hear them rev up, unless its audibly overevving all the time or short on power in long grass leave it.

as joe says yes , some will respond to throttle but most dont , a sweet spot on the control with some but not all .
some rev as you think they should but most start position =revs , middle =idle , full =revs but still goverend as you work it it will power up as required

Thanks guys - that sounds about how mine is behaving - so I guess I might be chasing my tail trying to get it to behave any differently - really can't say I like it though.

I like moving the throttle and changing the engine revs.

I might try and take a video and get your opinions on it....

Thanks again.

Polybus

If anyone is interested - check out this video - it is my Power Torque running.

Let me know what you think.

Normal - Revving too hard - the one setting which is kinda mid throttle doesn't seem too bad I guess.

VCCOMM and Joe seem to have got it pretty much nailed - you'll see on the video that the throttle is behaving just like VCCOMM described - ie: start position =revs , middle =idle , full =revs

Let me know what you all think.

The video is on my OneDrive - you can see it here.

http://1drv.ms/1ggHQ91

There are three version - they are all identical - just pick the one you can view the three versions are MKV, MP4 and WMV - hopefully that should allow anyone who wants to to view it.

Cheers.

Polybus

does seem a tad high huh hahaha ya sook , seemed scared of it , idle is a little high too , try a shorter spring in carb (the long one ) and the lines are govener to cap and decomp to carb body the inlet closest to the engine ?
if not tey that 1st then a lighter/shorter spring or you can remove it too and see how it goes . sounds ok though but yes , a little high in the revs . no need to pop the top , just pry out the round plug , it does come out yes

Looks like the govenor and decompressor lines are connected OK

Took the spring out altogether and ran it - seemed to rev worse - mind you - come to think of it that was with the little cap still off - perhaps I should try again with the spring out and the cap back on.

I'll let you know how I go.

IF you have another carby you can change it out . use all your new bits but be sure its same and still servicable , no cracks or blockages . some just wont play the game though . let it rev and see if the gov' does its job or you did already ? most times they rev waaaaay high then drop off then as we said before , you work it and the gov' does its thing

I have taken the long spring out and put the centre cap back on - its actually running quite a lot better now.

Still feels weird have very little throttle control, but I'm reasonably happy with it now - I'd say its revs have dropped by about 1/3.

Good result.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts/help - and special thanks to VCCOMM

always a pleasure if we can help and get a good result , was fun though huh .
if your happy with it it must be ok . when you find more though try a shorter spring , i take it you had a look at the LM/G4 page that Jack put up ? lot of good info in it and tells about the springs too and yes it is safe to just remove it