OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Engines Questions On Briggs & Stratton Engines What B&S is This on my Victa Mustang? Now Faulty.

I've had this Victa Key start with B&S four stroke for over a decade now. I found it in a rubbish skip and it has always been hard to start (hence electric start??) but once going , a real smoothie.
Hasn't got the grunt to tackle tall grass but is (was) perfectly fine for keeping a lawn regularly maintained.
Does anyone know what series this motor is. The mower dates from the late 1980s.
Well after several months, I decided to take it for a run. The oil level never seems to go down and was quite clean when I last checked over a year ago. Anyways, after a lot of cranking over (unusually long time even for this engine) it ran fine for the first couple of minutes but then started to falter and made some metallic sounding knocking noises that sounded suspiciously like a valve timing issue, then eventually stalled. Upon restart it could barely stay on and made the same intermittent metallic internal "hitting" sound before making a mild backfiring sound accompanied by a small shot of flame out the exhaust.
I gave up and pulled out the trusty early 80s 2 stroke Mustang to finish the job with.
I am thinking of just dicing this engine (nice as it is to listen to) and just fitting a powertorque from my Mustang GTS which has a much more worn base than this mower.

Should be 090000 series but the engine numbers will be on the metal shroud under the gas tank. I think it on a metal tab over the muffler on this one.

Could be just carbon on the piston. Valve clearances do close up on these. As far as jumping valve timing I have yet to see one do this as it is metal to metal gear train. If if not just needing decoking or valve problem then you need see inside the crankcase for problems.

Either if it is late 80's it had a good life and may just wants to retire. I do still work on some Briggs engines from the 60's and 70's here but most of them are horizontals.

Note: metal knocking sound could also be just the cutter hitting the mower body too. If this is the case then the flywheel could be partially sheared.

Just a few thoughts though as I prefer to put my hands on these problems.

Pull the spark plug out and with your finger blocking the plug hole, crank it over. Did it feel like it has good compression? Did you hear it or feel the engine make the banging noise?

I have the Users Manual, if you need it I can upload it.

The base is the same as the Vortex base so I'm not real sure the full-crank engine on the other mower you pictured will fit.Those bases were more designed to fit the power-torque engine.Maybe put one of those on,sounding more like the old B&S needs to retire.

Oh no, you misunderstood what I was saying.
I have a decrepit Mustang GTS with a crappier base than this and was thinking of moving the engine (and engine cover) to this. I was also thinking of leaving the base red instead of painting it white. I think the combo would look interesting.

Sounds like it would be easier than trying to fix the B&S.

I think you might be right.

I always am.

Here it is minus the B&S, next to the two stroke it will receive from a rusted mower.
It is a so called Chinese Powertorque that I recently acquired. It starts and runs well after I fitted a missing float and primer cap.

Decided to see what the Star Wars looking Mustang GTS cowl would look like on this base. What do you think?

It would properly look a bit better if it didn't have VC-160 wheels on it.It just doesn't look right with those wheels.I see another white one in the background.
Is this the cowl off it?
Also I see that fine VC-160 mark I auto drive.
Or was your the auto push? I can't remember.

That's the Auto push I featured earlier. It's in good nick but the carburettor needs work.
Yep, that's the mower the cover came off in the background, that I also featured recently.
I have fitted a Chinese powertorque that works well onto the red base, from a rusty victa steel deck, since sent to scrap.
I agree the VC wheels don't look as good as the later type, with this style of cover, but I just wanted to try it on for size so to speak.

Engine and flywheel swap completed successfully. Cut the front lawn with aplomb.

It certainly is a different looking mower now that's for sure.

I'm pretty pleased with it. You could start it with your teeth!!