Went to the machine shop today to check in with there progress. The cranks are slightly different, the 301 has an extra hole drilled in the weight closest to the cam gear, otherwise they are exactly the same. I asked him about weighing the piston and rods from both engines, and we did, the 301 rod and piston were 125 grams lighter! Then we noticed the rod from the 301 was much slimmer than the one from the 321. He got out his kohler book and the book shows that both engines used the same rod, we looked at both rods again and compared them to a new kohler .010 under rod he had on hand. Both of the used rods are apparently after market, neither had kohler markings on them and both engines had been rebuilt at some point in there lives.
I am going to try to go ahead and use the 301 crank, the machinist said he would fill the extra hole in the wieght on the crank so that it would look exactly like the one out of the 321 (I think he said it would be filled by welding it full and machining if off, anyhow, it would not be visible and would add weight back to the crank). May or may not work, I already have this crank and if it doesn't, I just have to take it apart again and find a useable 321 crank...I priced them new (just over $400.00!), trying not to go down that road.
The rest of the engine has been hot tanked and bead blasted, and he is waiting for me to get my rebuild parts in and for the cylinder sleeve to arrive. The only other issue that he could find was that I needed a new exhaust valve, one was bent (301) and the other was pitted so bad that it was unuseable. The seats were good as were the valve guides. I got my parts order today, I went with a stens rotary rebuild kit (gaskets, piston, rings, and rod), the machine shop had the kohler exhaust valve I need on hand and will be using it in the engine.
I have been trying to get the engine work, rebuild, sorted out so have done little else to the tractor itself. I did get a wild hair today and decided to get the steering wheel off. I see some folks on here recommend buying a steering wheel puller, I decided to see if I could make one myself. I looked around my shop and found a piece of 2x4 about 8" long. I took that and got out a hole saw for installing door handles in doors (I think it cuts a 2 1/8" hole) and drilled a hole in roughly the center wide side of the 2x4. Then I took a 3/8" bit and drilled 2 holes throught the narrow sides of the 2x4 about 1 1/2" to each side of the first hole. I then drilled 2 more 3/8" holes through the wide portion of the 2x4 between the 1st (big) and 2nd set of holes, these holes were staggered off center of the large hole, one above and one below, but they roughly were in a straight line with the center hole. Then, I took my miter saw and cut the 2x4 in half long ways, cutting the large hole down the middle. I then used some bolts I had laying around, bolted the 2 halves of the 2x4 around the base of the steering wheel, and attached it to my harmonic balancer puller with 2 more bolts. It made some cracking and popping noises as I applied pressure to the steering wheel, but popped it off without a bit of trouble. I think the version they sale is about $60.00, if I had to buy the parts for my homemade version I would guess you would have about $2.00 invested! Mine is not pretty, but it did the job, and I have $58.00 (well really $60.00) left in the wallet for other stuff I need to get the tractor up and going! Here a couple pics on my homemade steering wheel puller, feel free to make you own, I don't intend to patent it!
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If you look at the pics, you can see that I have already removed the hydro handle, and you can see my "rare" and fully operational cigar lighter, I still would let that go for an even swap on a tiller! LOL!
Okay, once the wheel was off, I found these little do-hickeys setting on the shaft between the wheel and the plastic bushing that goes into the end of the steering column. Here are the pics of them:
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Anyone have any idea what these are supposed to do? They kind of look like the remains of a bearing, I could not see they were doing anything, just occupying space. Note: my cheap puller had no ill effects on the steering shaft!