'84 John Deere 318 with a 20HP Onan?

D-Dogg said:

Yep, he could very well have put a P220G into it. Lots of guys did. I think Kenny told me the only difference between the P218G and P220G was the cam and the carb.


If it runs good, it runs good, and is worth every bit of the price.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input! My wife is already resigned to the fact we'll probably have multiple JD's in the house (well garage).

hd
this should be a P 220 G.
if you want to be sure look inside the throat of the carb.
#238 on the venturi will be 20 h.p.
#205 will be 16/18 h.p.
thank you. boomer (the used onan engine parts guy )

Well I took a look and held off buying, at least for the moment. Have a few questions to run by you all first.

1) He said it was an Onan 20HP engine, but the sticker said something along the likes Laminol or Larminal. I know I'm not remembering that right though. He said it was from when the Onan's were produced in Canada. He moved here from Canada in 2003ish. Now the engine sounded good when it was running, no smoke, seemed to rev up fine. Same with the drive as well.

2) The mower deck was a 46", and it was beat up pretty bad. The non-discharge side had a 2" x 8" gash in the middle. Would need to be banged out and welded as you could see the spinning blade.

3) Maybe this is indicative of the early 46" decks, but even when it was raised fully up, the front was tilted forward.

4) I tugged on one of the spindles (side with the gash) and it moved around. Bearings are probably shot. He used to have a rear PTO on it with a pull behind deck, both he sold and got the 46" deck as part of the deal. Not sure if he hit the deck or it was the previous owner.

5) The blade, which was what I was mainly interested in. It was only and up/down version, although had the mounting holes to add a the angling cylinder. A little rusty, but with new skid shoes on it and seemed to be in good shape. He said the last time he had it hooked up, it wouldn't raise fully. He thought it needed to have some additional fluid added to it, that it may have leaked out a little. He wanted $400 for just the blade and was willing to take $300, but if it is a bad cylinder, I'd have to put another $100 into. Would have taken him up on it for 300 if it was working properly.

Oh, the front coupler for the hydraulics was loose. He went to put the cap on it and it was moving around.
5) Overall fair condition. Lots of scrapping on the non-discharge side from tree branches, would definitely need some paint. But that was understandable. Oh, and no front emblem either!

The good, assuming the hour meter worked, it only had 1050 hrs on it. So the Canadian "Onan" was still pretty young. His lot wasn't huge, maybe 1/2 acre, and with snow pushing he probably didn't have a lot of time on the engine here as he did on the original in Canada.

Maybe if I could get him down 175-200 I'd be interested. The deck would definitely need work, welding, spindle bearings etc... Unfortunately that is outside my skill set (well could replace the spindles, but no welding).

The blade, worse case would be a new cylinder, although I'd want to add the side to side hydraulics on it. Not sure about the loose coupling, maybe just a broken bracket?

He had a guy look at it before me that didn't buy, so will think some more on it.

As Engine_tech points out, Linimar made these engines for Onan up in Canada. No cause for alarm whatsoever there. My understanding is that they are part for part identical to the Onan built engines.

A manual angle blade is worth only $350 in good shape. You're right on having to spend a bit getting the cylinder fixed (Alan in Vermont can repair these, BTW). You still have the issue of the brackets and additional cylinder for the power angle.

That deck does sound a bit abused.

Still, he's not outrageous on the price.

However, since all you really need is the blade, this deal may not be for you.