Hi, ,a Granny friend down the road bought this mower, and has had nothing but trouble with it. She has paid heaps to mower shops for repairs........... and in desperation, just locked her investment in the garden shed........ I gained trust and having a look. Just dirty fuel tank, carb wires pulled out of cut off and decompressor pipe off......... But I looked further and found a few cracks in the base...... what a mess......It Iooks like a chinese power torque engine, so probably chinese base...... It is supposed to be pressed steel base. That should have a bit of give, but it has cracked in 3 places...... Anyway my kind neighbour mig welded it up , it should be OK. It reminds me of the Titanic. the steel had too much carbon in it and when it hit the iceburg, it cracked instead of just bending....... Carbon makes steel brittle.... I'll just keep my eye out for a power torque base and put it aside for her in the future....... I might put it together early christmas morning as I'm up at 5 am with a back pain and a cat that want to get fed...... anyway it's nice and cool up in Bundy that time. cheers speedy
........................Keep your blades sharp......................
Hi Speedy, what a shame, i'm guessing it had a broken blade going round and round under there for a while to cause it to crack like that. Merry Christmas, Ted
Hi Speedy, as Ted says vibration is the most likely cause. It certainly is Chinese and if it is a Tornado then those bases are a bit prone to that cracking, they seem to be thinner, used the same amount of steel as the standard PT base but stretched it a bit further to make it the 19 inch. If you fitted it to a standard PT base you would need a 20mm spacer under the motor because the shaft is longer. I'm not sure if the spacer ring used under the Briggs on the PT bases would fit the bolt pattern but I think it should. I can check later if you wish. Like you Speedy, I have trouble sleeping Merry Christmas all
Any metal that is constantly being bent will end up breaking sooner or later. It is called being work harden. The best solution that I have found is to double the material in these areas and make sure everything is well balance especially if your mower has a bar blade.
From what see of your friend welding, he is using a fluxed core wired without gas. Lots of splatter. Plus type wire is not match very well to the type metal being welded.
It actually looks welds done by previous fluxed core wire supplier was selling me. I was having a treble time getting decent welds. I actually was blaming myself for the welding problems. With my current spool of wire the welds are a lot better with better penetration with less splatter. Once I add the gas (double shielding) the welds are more fluid resulting in flatter weld seams with even less splatter.
I say this to be mean as I would encourage that fellow to keep on practicing welding as it is the only way to get good at it.
Hmm are all those Chinese Powertorques longer shaft? Then they might fit on a Rover frame of which I have many.
How does one pick them, probably the later models I guess but are there any distinguishing marks?Does this mean that Victa shut their metal foundry well before B&S took over?
The modern keystart base is bigger than the old ones, 19 inch.... the older Chinese powertorques are not long shaft...... It's hard to fit a powertoeque motor to a rover base, but you could have a go.. speedy
........................Keep your blades sharp......................
Hi Jeff, it is only the 19 inch Powertorques that have the longer shaft that I know of , they go under a number of names Tornado,Big Bob etc, they have a completely different base and all have bigger wheels the same size front and rear. The other problem with fitting a Powertorque to a Rover base is the height adjuster bar will hit the head of the PT, Victa put a step in their bar so it will go underneath the head. I guess you could put a step in it so it went around the outside of the head. Rover bases outlast the Victa base but the Briggs motor will never outlast a Victa. I haven't fitted a Victa to a Rover base but I have my ideas as to how it can be done, then you have a combination of the best of both worlds
Degreased the carb, next morning blew a few drops of water off, then assemble.............. where's the black needle? In the lawn? Done it thousands of times, must be loosing it a bit..... Down to mower shop. speedy
........................Keep your blades sharp......................
Hello Norm, Yes I bought a yellow one for $2. They are all yellow now as they are easier to find........... Put it together and it revved ........ did he mod on a spare slide and it ran better but not properly. So I'm going to try an old LM carb ,I cleaned. up . speedy
........................Keep your blades sharp......................
