Help identify Craftsman lawn tractor

[Tinhack]

It does act a little strange with bypass enabled. It should stop any motion of the axle but it slowly reverses when full reverse and it jerks forward but only when in full forward.

The bypass is used when the engine is off, and you need to move the mower. There should be a way to keep the bypass fixed in either position--On when you need to push the mower and off all other times.

 

[bkenobi]

Yeah, I get what the bypass is for. But I was surprised that the mower would be able to move with the bypass engaged. It does allow the mower to be pushed with it enabled so it's doing all I need. I just thought it would prevent the engine from sending power to the wheels when bypassed. Since it works to push around, I'm going to skip it.

The clutch appears to have plenty of power when disengaged so I'm guessing something's broken. I figured I'd pull it off and inspect, but I don't think it's really servicable so I'll have to source a new one. Looks like I can get one for around $100 online. Is there a known good source for these or mfg that I should avoid?

 

[bkenobi]

I tested the electrical and see 12ish volt from the switch and 11ohm on the clutch so looks like the clutch is bad. I pulled the clutch and it spinns but its gritty. I removed the 3 nuts and separated the different parts and it appears that the issue is a bad bearing on the pulley half. Since there's no way to remove/reinstall a new bearing, it looks like a new clutch is required (as expected).

 

[Richard001]

I tested the electrical and see 12ish volt from the switch and 11ohm on the clutch so looks like the clutch is bad. I pulled the clutch and it spinns but its gritty. I removed the 3 nuts and separated the different parts and it appears that the issue is a bad bearing on the pulley half. Since there's no way to remove/reinstall a new bearing, it looks like a new clutch is required (as expected).

Really, you can't remove the bearing ?

If man made it, man can fix it.

Got a press or a large hammer ?

 

[bkenobi]

Not that I couldn't replace the bearing, just that I'd read it's not worth it for reasons unspecified. I suspect it's not worth it for a shop because at $150/hr or whatever they charge now, it's not worth the cost of the part to tinker with. My free time is close to free (if I don't hate doing it) so it's worth the effort.

That sounded like a challenge so I went ahead and removed the bearing. As I assumed, just a couple sockets of the right size and a heavy enough mallet to break the rust. I did have to grind the ears off the pulley that was holding the bearing in place. I'm assuming this isn't precise enough to need to worry about balance?

I retested the resistance again and now it's showing 3.5-5ohm so I think it should be fine. I'll clean the terminals a little better and add dielectric grease prior to reinstall which should get me below 3 ohm. Fortunately when the engine was swapped they used grease on the drive pulley so nothing was seized like I had feared!

 

[bkenobi]

I replaced the bearing which was badly grinding and the new one is much better. After reinstallation I noticed the clutch sort of drags as it rotates so it's clearly not quite straight. Having it reassembled already, I decided to install and see whether it would keep the blades spinning or not be an issue. Prior to adding the deck, I used a calibrated stick to see if the clutch would stop with enough resistance (it did). With the deck on and the clutch disengaged the blades are stopped but the deck engages without issue. I noticed the mandrel brake pads are pretty worn so I may have to replace them at some point but right now I'm pretty happy with my free DLT!

I mowed along the street which only gets touched once a month or so and my 17hp LT1000 struggles. This one had no issue. I ramped it up to thicker grass and eventually took it out to my field that I normally run my 30hp NH compact tractor with rotary cutter on. The DLT ran through it like nothing even though the grass was 5' tall!

 

[Richard001]

Great job.