OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Engines Questions On Victa Two Stroke Engines Slipping cup starter

We all know the issues that these cup starters can give and I used to avoid messing with them for that reason. I built a Utility for my grandson a while back because I had a full crank with a G4 carb on it. All good but then the cup starter went into the usual "I am not going to grab" mode. I pulled the cup off and with a 14 inch half round bastard file, flat face facing my left, I filed a series of slots in the cup about every 10mm. These slots are not deep more like deep scratches, probably 1/2mm deep at the most, problem solved works like a dream, catching every time now

Thanks for telling us NormK. It doesn't happen often in my experience, but once it starts (excuse pun), it keeps chewing aluminium filings away.
I think there was some mention on ODK a while back of a solution being to apply lubricant to the mechanism that sprouts the starter pawls??

From my experience MF any lubricant up there only makes things worse, the whole design relies on friction and any bit of lubricant that gets near the cup and you know what happens

I was thinking minimal amount well away from the contact areas. But that is pretty moot as it has come back to me a bit more. It involves replacing some bushes or washers in the mechanism itself, that prevents the pawls from deploying properly.
The pawls can be reversed as well.

This one would not catch at all, 10 mins with the file and not a problem since, first pull every time

Well, that's good to know.

I'm going to have a play today and see if I can use a Chonda cup starter and see how that works out. If it does work I have found a use for the pile of Chonda motors I have sitting here

Ok so that works fine, bit more fiddley than I would have liked but the end result is good. Firstly I had to bore the center of the cup to suit the shoulder on the Victa nut, then I cut 4mm off the top of the cup to get the height clearance and then I closed up the little wings on the inside for a bit more clearance in the diameter. It now catches every time within 4 inches of the cord being pulled

Hi Norm,

You wouldn't by any chance have a spare recoil starter and cup for a horizontal shaft TWM Chonda laying around off a deceased one ?

Cheers,
BB.

Hi BB, only horizontal shaft motor I have here is on a Honda that has been used once. Not sure what the difference is between the horizontal and vertical motors is. Do you know the depth of the cup and the bolt center diameter of the recoil and how many bolts.They come in 3,4 and 6 holes just to make things hard to swap around

Hi Norm,

I'm a bit puzzled, you say that the Horizontal shaft engine is on a "Honda",

if I may ask what Honda Lawnmower uses a Horizontal Shaft Power Plant ?, as I've always known Honda lawnmowers to use GXV engines (vertical Shaft) as they are all slashers and not GX (Horizontal Shaft).

I really need to change my meds if I've lost the plot on this.

Cheers,
BB.

Sorry BB if I confused you, the only horizontal shaft motor I have here is a Honda on a wood chipper so no need to up the meds. The other thing is most of the Chondas I have are missing the pull start because that is what usually goes because people just keep pulling it because they can't get it started because the choke is not closing

Hi Norm,

Thanks for clearing that up for me as I thought I was losin' it. All Good.

Now I have another issue with this chonda and that is a previous tenant has buggerised around with governor linkages and springs and as I don't normally play much with these I really need a photo of the spring and linkage arrangement so that I can get mine correct. We don't seem to have any Honda GX-140~160 manuals in the system for me to look at so that sort of puts me in the poo at the moment.

Cheers,
BB.

BB I will get a couple of pics in the morning too dark at the moment and I can't seem to get the flash to work on my camera

NormK now you admit it. I had thought you were in the dark during my daylight hours here.


Bonnar, What you are looking for is the GX110, GX140 service manual but I haven't seen any PDFs available just paperbacks from Honda. They don't even have a shop manual though they are worthless anyway. Honda does keep a tight reins on their service manuals which is probably why there no PDFs out there. They are still in the dark ages on this. I rather have the PDFs as they much easier keep track of and definitely not grease covered.

What worst Honda doesn't have any available currently according to their Amazon store here.

So if someone has one they could scan the page or pages related to the governor linkages and springs and post them for us to look at. It would be nice, otherwise someone could just take a snapshot of an actual engine's governor setup and post it. I would but I have not even seen a GX140 here in the 9 years I have been working on the Honda engines.

AVB, I spend all my time in the dark these days

Hi Norm and AVB,

Thank you very much, I'll look forward to your shots Norm as this seems to be the best record we'll have.

It's a real shame that some companies are just so tight on information regarding their products. It's just a "bring it to us" so we can make bucket loads of cash out of you mentality.

Cheers,
BB.

What gets me is when you or customer takes in piece of equipment into a dealer for repairs and they don't even have confident techs but they still hand you an very large repair for doing nothing.

I have been servicing that a local John Deere can not even repair when it come the riders and ZTRs. I know of instant where the tech told he don't even have a oil pump in a Kawasaki engine even it obvious has an oil filter or even find a loose electric wire. at the fuel solenoid.

The same dealer is a Stihl dealer. I carried in a warranty repair for one my customers. They didn't even know how to pressure/vac test the crankcase. On they didn't even get the hedger fix as I received it back with the spark unpluged. The hedger was racing well above the spark limiter. It turn out that it was dieseling because of a bad plug which I from in short order.

AVB dealers are not interested in fixing things, the aim is to make the repair so expensive that often it is cheaper to get a new item. Wish I had the gall to charge a tenth of what they charge.
BB for some reason the pics won't attach have to try later.
OK it won't attach pics so I will try to explain it. The long governor spring goes over/ along the governor arm, it hooks into a small hole in the top of the plastic throttle butterfly mechanism and the other end hooks into a small hole on the governor arm just below where the governor rod clips in. You can just see the spring coil just on the bend in the governor arm rod. Hope this helps. and now it looks like the pics are here for some reason and I'm not game enough to try and delete the duplicates.
Another thing I like about these Chondas is that you very rarely get one with a dirty air filter, probably because they don't last long enough to get the filter dirty

Hi Norm,

Firstly thanks for your efforts, this is a vertical shaft engine on a slasher while mine is a horizontal which is what I thought you had on your chipper as you suggested. I guess the principal is much the same but some of the bracketry is rather different.

You speak of a spring that goes over / along the governor arm and hooks between the carby butterfly and the second hole on the governor lever but looking at the photos it doesn't seem to show in the shots as it actually being there, it is on mine though. This is where the confusion lies a little between the two formats I guess.

Cheers,
BB.

BB I don't have a horizontal shaft Chonda the motor on the chipper is a Honda sloper with horizontal shaft, and to get to the governor bit I have to remove the petrol tank and that looks a bit messy because the governor arm and the rod are mounted up under the recessed section of the tank. Bottom line is the governor setup is the same as the vertical shafts, spring slips over the rod and hooks one end into the butterfly and the other into the governor arm. My son will be here from NZ tomorrow and we can remove the tank and he can get a close up pic of it if you want, I can't work out how to take close ups with my camera, they just end up blurry