OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Finding and Swapping Wanted 2 decks needed

Have 2 mowers both have working engines but the decks are rusted out. Need 2 compatible decks, one of the mowers is a Victa Hurricane, the other is a Vantage. Think that the basic Powertorque decks should be compatible but will take anything that is compatible. Will pay cash but needs to be here in Melbourne.

Hi Tiger, these motors should have a spacer ring under the motor because they are on Victa frames so they can go on any pretty much any other base other than Victas of which there is floating around, Rovers or anything else of which I have dozens of here if that helps. Rover catchers is something I am a bit short on though. Powertorque frames I am always short of because of the rust problem.
Cheers Norm

Hello gents, for the record, the TVS series of tecumseh engines do not use a spacer ring, the early sideways mounted briggs also do not have a spacer ring, both these models are short shaft engines (35mm approx) and will not fit on many other decks, especially the rover and Masports, the blades will be too high up in the pan.
The later model forward facing briggs have a 50mm shaft length and use the spacer ring, Rovers, Masports etc use the more common long shaft motor(75mm approx).
So the short story is you need 2 victa powertorque style decks.
Cheers, Ted

I have a new unique problem. I recently found an alloy high arch Powertorque Victa mower from about 1984 with a good thumblatch catcher from a council clean up pile. Problem is the handles, including the bottom stubs are missing and they are going to be hard to find without separating them off another base.

Thanks Big Ted, there is always something that will throw a spanner in the works, I might do a clean out and dump a lot of this Briggs/Tecumesh junk I have here, just not worth messing with.

Thanks Norm and BigTed so it has to be Powertorques, nothing else can be modified to make these fit?

Assuming that the answer is no, anyone have any Powertorques not fussed about catchers just need the decks?

Hi Tiger, Powertorque decks are the hardest to come by, any other deck is pretty easy to find, but as we all know Powertorques all rust out in the left hand corner. I'm always rapt when I find a Powertorque base with a 4 stroke on it because the motor is usually shot but the deck is often good and the wheels often in very good condition because they haven't done much work. I have plenty of rusted ones but I know that isn't going to help

Someone here in an earlier thread this year mentioned a way of converting the early steel decks, which took the full cranks, to take the PT (and therefore Briggs?).
You cut out the section of metal with the engine mounting holes out of the old rust ridden deck, to use as an adapter plate and graft it into this full crank deck. He mentioned that this deck with the different full crank hole pattern is made from thicker steel than later ones and therefore less prone to rusting through.
Wish I could find the link.

Hi MF, I think it would be difficult to cut the hole bigger, easy if you had a plasma cutter, very hard without. I don't think the thicker base is the cause they rust less quickly, I think Victa was probably putting a better paint/rust protection on the underside, and I think the Chinese were probably only treating them with coloured water.What I do with the ones I fix, is coat the inner left hand side with fish oil so this hopefully will give the bases a chance of surviving another 10/15 years

Given the difficulty in obtaining these decks, I've had another look at the rust damage, maybe they can be salvaged?. I don't really want to spend too much time on these but would builder's bog and a quick spray paint suffice on these, or is there a better product available?

I would try find another. Search gumtree/ ebay/ FB pages. A ot more activity especially on the FB pages.

Vantage here: https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/craigieburn/lawn-mowers/victa-vantage-4-stroke-lawnmower/1161858936

The grey one is definitely a throw out as the integrity of the handle bar to the chassis has been severely compromised.

I can't get my head around how Victa moved the fastening point from the side of the chassis to the top surface as the force applied by ones hands at the top of the handlebars is directly forced onto a flat surface that will inherit metal fatigue and induce rust which causes it to fail, also using just one bolt creates a single pivot point which makes it worse.

This has been clearly demonstrated over the last 10 years and still they build these things the same way. I can only come to the assumption that it is deliberate planned obsolescence so that you buy another mower in about 8 years time.

Honestly I wouldn't touch any of the current Victa's as they are made out of substandard materials and outdated engineering.

Cheers,
BB.

Even Sanli mowers have the handle bars mounted at the side and held by two bolts each. Just Victa's arrogance at resting on their laurels and Australians entranced by a brand name.

I have on a few occasions to salvage some decks I have on the inside used 3 layers of fibre glass matting up in the left corner/side, this then will keep any wet grass from rusting the deck any further, then on the outside a wipe of body filler. This method is only suitable for a small rust area and not suitable if the deck as rusted through the handle mounting area. I dumped a few more decks like that today. As for the amount of time and money involved in fibreglassing, if I tried to justify it into the cost of the mowers any accountant would say I would be better of staying in bed or watching TV, but from an early age I have been programed to work so I must continue to do something every day

I had a frame that sat outside for years that I found and it was full of scaly rust on the underside. While there was only one tiny pin sized hole in the deck -near that known rot spot by the left side of handle (which I plugged up with Knead it), I ended up dicing it when found a better deck with a broken engine, because I knew more penatrative rust holes would develop sooner than later, with all the thick scale underneath. That tiny hole along with the scale, was the beginning of the end.