Under load, always run it at full throttle, but when cooling it off before shutting it down, run it at idle, and for more than a few seconds...5 minutes is good. The engine will cool better at idle than it will at half throttle because it is using the least fuel and producing the least heat. I have tried cooling it down at about 1/3 throttle and it is not as effective.

Cool, didn't know that. See never trust what you read on the internet, lol. (Thats where I read they were all the same.):D

Good info, thanks!

I'm certainly going to take a different approach to turning off and cooling off my machines in the future. After multiple carb adjustments, I figured it to be something else but I didn't know exactly what it was.

Today, I received a somewhat large bill on one of my 129's to replace the flywheel, driveshaft and carb for which I supplied all of the parts less some bolts and small hardware. So, I know that if the front pto is going to get fixed, then I will be performing the work to try to save some $$. I am a little apprehensive as I have no experience in doing this and I figure the hardest part is probably getting it off of the driveshaft for the first time in many years! Mark Hellrung (sponsor) has some rebuilt ones that I might consider, but I was wondering how long it took to rebuild one and how difficult it is on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most difficult task when working on a cub cadet. Thanks again for chiming in on this!!

Cub Cadet 123