g'day peter,

mowers are only easy to start to a point, after that it depends on how
well maintained they are as to how easy they start. if you deal only
with specialist mower/garden equipment specialist who provide on site
sales and service you are more likely to end up with the right
equipment for the right job.

either way you will need to be clearing the area of those fallen
branches etc.,. as no mower is made to act like a bulldozer. the old
victa impulse starter would be pretty scarce nowadays and have my
doubts as to whether a victa that old would do much for you even if
you rebuilt it.

sounds like you should be looking at a b&s 5 or so hp commercial
model, they are very reliable machines, not sure if you can get an
electric start model? they used to have them, they were never very
popular as the battery and starter mechanism added weigh to the
overall package.

a starting procedure that works well with all 4 stroke engines is as
follows:

slowly rotate engine using the starter until the engine just passes
the compression stage (that is when the motor gets the hardest to turn
past). once at this stage let the starter cord return to its prestart
position. then pulling on the starter handle engage the starter then
pull the cord to rotate the motor and cause it to start.

the problem most people have with using pull cord starters is when
they meet that compression part the way through the starting
procedure, using this method helps avoid this.

good luck in your quest

len

On Wed, 9 Jul 2003 20:47:38 +1000, "Bushy"
wrote:

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
http://hub.dataline.net.au/~gardnlen/