[mikeinri]

Pretty wild stuff in those Lava Tree pics!

Mike

 

[LostMy65]

Had a bent pushrod. Bought a new and tried to adjust the valves and broke the adjuster nut. Still learning.

 

[SuperK]

Had a bent pushrod. Bought a new and tried to adjust the valves and broke the adjuster nut. Still learning.

Been there learned that. Gaining experience wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so expensive. I swear that three quarters of everything I learned was because I learned what NOT to do. Knowledge is knowledge though, I guess.
Hang in there

 

[mikeinri]

@LostMy65 Welcome to MTF!

What brand is your tool set? Don't think I've seen a case like that before.

Mike

 

[Dave55]

Remember life lessons.
The more they cost you, the longer you remember them.

 

[mikeinri]

Finally got the new seat installed on my GS6500. This was a TSC Gator seat, bought on clearance. I had to buy some sliding mounting bars off Amazon, and had to use a 1/2 cutting board to make spacers to give the locking mechanism enough clearance.

I'm extremely happy with this, hoping this seat holds up better than the original!

I do need to engineer a safety switch setup. The original seat had it built into the seat itself, which I couldn't replicate with this one.

Mike

 

[B440]

Seat looks comfy. What did it sell for on clearance? Time to bathe the tractor so it matches the seat?

 

[RedOctobyr]

Nice, the seat looks great Mike!

 

[mikeinri]

Thanks guys.

Wash it? That's crazy talk, LOL...

The seat was originally $180, Clearance price was only $45!!! I think the slider kit was around $30. Plus the $7 cutting board and some hardware to mount it, still WAY less than the $200+ that Sears wanted for a replacement seat.

EDIT: Added pic of seat box...

I would have bought a second seat as a backup, but they were all gone before I figured out how to make it work (I didn't want to be stuck with two seats that didn't fit).

Mike

 

[B440]

When I first changed the oil and filter in the GT6000 transaxle, I mistakenly opened up the bottom cover of the gerotor.

All of the oil will drain from the filter location, so opening the gerotor cover is unnecessary.

Here's the gerotor without the cover.

See that o-ring? Yup, I should have replaced it after opening, but I didn't and it was leaking afterwards.

Well, today I finally replaced it. 5 minute job when you actually have the replacement o-ring

I also took some measurements of the front axle bushings, which are plastic. I may try and replace them with bronze bushings at some point.

 

[SuperK]

...When I first changed the oil and filter in the GT6000 transaxle, I mistakenly opened up the bottom cover of the geroto
Well, today I finally replaced it. 5 minute job when you actually have the replacement o-ring
I also took some measurements of the front axle bushings, which are plastic. I may try and replace them with bronze bushings at some point.

Wow~! Thanks for the heads up. I haven't done much maintenance here, but certainly due. Thanks for the photos and the heads up on that O-Ring. I'll have that info tucked away now. As I have two 5000's their bushings aren't too far from the 6000, let us know where you find them.

 

[A SIMPLE PLAN]

rebuilding the B&S OPPOSED 18 & 16 HP engines i got for the basket case. the 18 HP had BIG LIP at top of cyl and worn valve guides. put .010" oversize rings on the pistons, file fit them to get around .016" ring end gap... i guess .010" wudve been enuf... but better than the .125" the WORN RINGS (OIL CHANGE... ADD OIL??? they never heard of it, i guess?) that it had.

the valve guides were weak, i cld feel the valve moving back and fourth in the guide... quite a bit. shouldnt feel them move side to side at all. machining of valve guides for brass sleeves too much $.. might as well oversize it .020" for bigger pistons $$$$. measured the valve stems, they seem close enuf to OK @ ~.310" apparently the valve steams are stouter than the valve guides. old valves good enuf after carbon GROUND off the underneath of valve. like Clint Eastwood said in Gran Torino to a kid ..."get out there and run it and blow the carbon off the valves"... that isnt going to happen. that CARBON IS ON THERE!!! it is not coming off... i put valve in the drill, spun it and put it against a file to get the carbon off the underneath of the valve... after i took utility knife to gouge off the HARD CARBON from leaking oil down valve guide/s

i can live with the USED motor... for a yard toy that will see limited use just run thicker oil when it is run over 60*F... 10-30 with 20-50 motor oil... with 20% STP OIL TREATMENT (thick as honey) to THICKEN THE OIL UP (IT DID NOT LIKE 10-30 synthetic at all... SMOKED!!! and 5 min warm up time before first run of the day.

painted blower housing JD GREEN (WM spring green) and it looks nice... wrote on it CHECK THE OIL BEFORE EACH RUN OF THE DAY!!! so next owner might check the oil/change the oil every 25 hours since ppl just cannot seem to do that??? painted dipstick and tube multi-color so it stands out and maybe the person will NOTICE THE DIPSTICK and CHECK THE OIL.

waiting on coil now, seems to have no spark? hopefully that is it. and compression tester to see how much compression it has... doesnt have. they are kind of low compression engines anyway of ~8:1 so if i can get ... 90 PSI cranking that wud be ok with me

 

[Dave55]

Went for an exciting ride yesterday down a 30% slope street by my house, no brakes. 917.273090 22 HP garden tractor.
So ordered new brake pads last night, be here in a couple days. So today I tear into it, brake pads are fine. However the disc teeth are gone where it mounts on transmission. OK, order a new disc....well maybe not. Nobody has one, discontinued in 2016 as near as I can tell. So tomorrow I am making a trip to a lawn mower bone yard about 30 miles away and hope I can find a used one.

 

[SuperK]

Went for an exciting ride yesterday down a 30% slope street by my house, no brakes. 917.273090 22 HP garden tractor.
So ordered new brake pads last night, be here in a couple days. So today I tear into it, brake pads are fine. However the disc teeth are gone where it mounts on transmission. OK, order a new disc....well maybe not. Nobody has one, discontinued in 2016 as near as I can tell. So tomorrow I am making a trip to a lawn mower bone yard about 30 miles away and hope I can find a used one.

Sounds like a wild ride, Good luck on the disc.

 

[mikeinri]

Can you post some pics of what you're up against?

Mike

 

[Dave55]

Well bone yard came through, brake disc in perfect shape. Hope that one lasts another 20 years. Unfortunately I left the old disc at the bone yard. That slides back and forth on a shaft about .75" across with about 40 splines on it. The splines on the shaft out of the transmission were perfect, the splines inside the disc were non existant. The slide motion comes into play as the brake pads wear, so not much motion, but it has to be able to move exactly like a brake caliper on a car or truck moves as the pads wear. Worst part of the job was getting it back together, not much room between tranny and frame. the piece with the actuator has a steel puck shaped like the brake pad that goes in first, then the pad goes in, then you have to get it lined up with the bolt holes and get a bolt started, screwed in almost tight to keep the pad from falling out. About 5 minutes into the job I had already used 65% of the words in the four letter word dictionary. By the time I was done made it all the way through and about 50% through it on the second pass. Probably would not have been a bad job for me 30 or 40 years ago but now is a different story.
Right wrist was about FUBAR during an assault a couple years back so it don't work right. That was fun, healed wrong, so after 6 months I had to pay to get it broke again, this time they added hardware to keep everything in place more or less.
Left hand is still not up to par after a stroke a couple years back, sometimes it does what I ask it to, sometimes it does exactly what I don't want it to do.
Important thing, I got it together and it works great.

About like I installed a whole house Genrac generator for a customer 8 years ago. I have been servicing it for them every time it needs service. One of the spark plugs is against the back of the cabinet, you have to use your left hand to take plug out and put new one in. Got the old one out fine. Worked at getting the new plug in for 35 minutes and could not get it to start in the threads. Finally called my son. He had it in in 35 seconds. All I could say was you will be old one day and I hope you remember the hard time you gave me when someone has to bail you out.

Here is a video of a guy building a drag mower using the tranny I have Roper 633 is what he is calling it.
His donor mower was a GT 6000 Craftsman.

At 6:54 there is a kinda good shot of the disc brake setup from a top view.
With the fenders and all on mine, no camera shots of the job.

 

[mikeinri]

Well, the important thing is that you got it done, and it works correctly now! You're extremely lucky to have access to used parts for these things.

Mike

 

[Dave55]

I was lucky in finding the bone yard.
They guy that told me about it said if he don't have one they never made it.
When I asked for directions he told me a road to drive on till I get to an intersection with another road.
Then drive unknown distance till I see mowers sitting everywhere on right side of road, then you are there.
He had a 40 foot semi trailer clear full of parts, 4 buildings full of mowers and parts.
He also had probably 4 or 5 acres of mowers sitting outside, some complete, some not so much complete.
There were names I never heard of as well as about every name I have seen on this forum, several versions of each.
Probably 2 to 3 thousand mowers if you counted what were in parts.

 

[mikeinri]

Wow, wish we had something like that around here!

Mike

 

[Dave55]

If you had a catalog of what was there in decent shape, E Bay would make you a pile of cash, probably in rather short order.

Make up your list, WV is not that far, I am about 2 hours south of Pittsburgh, Pa.
But I will confess, I was thinking of Delaware when I started typing that looking at Mikeinri.
Rhode Island, Delaware, same difference right?
Mass. would be a bit more of a trip, leave now be there in the morning.
I was a long haul truck driver in a previous life.
Denver to NYC is about a 24 hour road trip (I had a fast truck).