Chapter 15 – Going Commando!
In January 2019 while shopping for some trimmer line at a mower shop, I noticed they had a refurbished Victa Commando 2-Stoke for sale. I was too weak to resist and bought it on the spot!
From what I can gather, this unit is a bitsa. Going by the decals and wheels, the base is late 90’s / early 2000’s steel 18’’ cut. The catcher is from a later model as these should have had red rather than grey inserts. The handle locks are also an earlier design.
The engine is most likely the VSX160, owing to the fuel tank/engine cover, the fuel cap and also the larger muffler. VSX engines had a fatter muffler, low-power and all late engines had a flat muffler. For those that don’t know, the muffler on Victa 2-Stroke exits down through the deck. That’s why you will notice them puffing smoke from below and the catcher vents. For 4-Stoke engines, there was a snap in plastic plug to close off the exhaust vent.
Fat –
Flat -
Plug –
The chassis is showing some wear and tear, to the point where I added some re-enforcement parts to strengthen the area where the handle fixes to the base. The engine on this machine had been fully rebuilt prior to sale. That said, Victa 2-Stokes are famous for being a bit temperamental, and while I have been lucky with my other 2-Stokes, this one has had a few occasions where it failed to start or struggled to idle. It’s a very fine line between getting one of these started and flooding them, if you don’t get them going on the first couple of pulls, they will end up being flooded.
This mower gets infrequent use at home and is occasionally taken on jobs.