Yesterday I went ahead and sold my 1018 for $800, went to the dealer and bought the 1862, serviced and delivered for free at the end of the week. I got home, took the deck and muledrive off of the 127, fired it up, attached my cart and drove around for the next 2 hours picking up sticks, branches and crap out of my yard and neighboring tree patch that we own. That tractor is very cool and mean looking with a deck attached!
No luck on finding a crank for it but the starter pulley fit on the keyway fine. The crank down by where the PTO would be is worn and could have been put back on but would not have lasted too long. The way the tractor is now, it should last indefinitely provided I keep the PTO off of it. Like my neighbor told me earlier, you don't need it for cutting anymore. Make it your rider. That's exactly what I am going to do. I think that I like it more in this configuration than with the PTO and deck attached.
