I am new to real garden tractors. I was pushed over the edge a few weeks ago after a late-model junk "lawn tractor" nearly got me hurt when the front axle broke for no reason and nearly rolled me down a steep side hill.
I picked up this 149 today for $75, I was told that it last ran 2 years ago when the engine stripped out all 4 of the mounting hole threads. It came with a 48"? deck that is a little rough but the spindles seem fine, a hydraulic lift 3-PT setup and what I guess I should call a sleeve hitch adapter. Only the deck has and pitting rust, the tractor itself has really light surface rust only. I haven't even run the serial number yet to see what year it is.
I am looking forward to gaining tons on knowledge off here, i have a lot of mechanical experience, but very little in hydraulics and "real garden tractors."
I have tons of questions I will be asking over the next couple weeks. One off the top of my head is I cannot get the thing to free wheel at all even after manually pressing the little valve buttons under the access plate, what do I need to do...towing the thing around is a little inconvenient.
Right now I have the motor out on the bench and I am considering at least throwing some rings on it while I have it out, I might even go the whole master rebuild kit but I am not sure about the machining involved on the little motors. Would it be wise to at least put a new head gasket and new OEM sized rings in it or is the "normal" thing to do just to rebuild the whole engine?
I was absolutely not surprised how the engine pulled away from the frame when i saw that these motors are mounted directly to the frame into a cast aluminum oil pan??? That just seems crazy to me and I think I am going to have to fabricate something a little more reasonable when i put the motor back in. These type of failures have to be common on these, right?
I also picked up a 1979 JD 212 w/47" deck for $275 last week that needed shockingly little done to it. I am going to fix-up both and either keep them both or keep my "favorite." The idea is that the two are radically different and i would gain all sorts of experience about these classics along the way.