Options for putting mower deck on John Deere 316 or 318?

[jim_wilson]

I'm going to be picking up a John Deere 316 shortly (my first John Deere - hope my Kubota doesn't get jealous).... but it doesn't come with a mower deck. My main interest in picking up this tractor is use it to mow with and I hope restore it some to have a project to work on. But I've been looking around and there doesn't seem to very many decks available for these tractors - that aren't rusted away to nothing. What are my other options to putting a mower deck on this thing - is it possible maybe to adapt decks from later models?

 

[beenthere]

Without a good deck in hand, I'd suggest not buying the 316 unless you just want that model to add to a vintage collection. Prolly the decks wear out long before the lawn tractors.
Is that a 40 year old tractor?

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

We kept two of them around here for years. Couldn't have enough tractors and trailers when we cleaned out chicken houses. They would pull a good sized trailer too. We checked dealerships and found a new deck for one. The other worked fine, so we had a parts deck. Tough little machines.

 

[dodge man]

You see them for sale now and then, the entire mower, not just the deck. Best bet woukd be to find the entire rig that’s broken down but has a decent deck.

 

[bigtiller]

About the cheapest and easiest way to mow with that 316 is to do it with a tow-behind finish mower.

It can do a lot of work with tow behind attachments.

 

[LukeL]

Too bad you’re not closer. I have a late model Deere 140/318 replacement 48” deck I’d sell.

 

[jim_wilson]

You see them for sale now and then, the entire mower, not just the deck. Best bet woukd be to find the entire rig that’s broken down but has a decent deck.

I see a lot of people making that very same comment on other forums too. Unfortunately it seems that the tractors far outlast the decks - so the likelihood of finding a trashed tractor with a good deck is somewhere between slim and none from what I've been seeing.

I did see a guy on another tractor forum who converted a shaft drive deck to be a 3pt shaft driven deck behind his 318, and he said it worked well. After thinking about it I think that might be the direction I take with this as a 3pt mounted deck would actually work better for the mowing situation I have , plus it opens up the possibilities of what I can use for a deck instead of having to fit something under the tractor itself.

 

[jim_wilson]

About the cheapest and easiest way to mow with that 316 is to do it with a tow-behind finish mower.

It can do a lot of work with tow behind attachments.

How big of a finish mower will the tractor handle - would it handle something sized for Sub Compact tractor?

 

[bigtiller]

How big of a finish mower will the tractor handle - would it handle something sized for Sub Compact tractor?

The tow-behind mowers I mentioned are self powered

 

[jim_wilson]

So I picked up the tractor a couple of weeks back, it didn't have a battery in it so I couldn't even try to start it. Got a battery about a week ago - and the thing turns over like a champ but doesn't even give a hint of starting. The previous owner told me the guy he got it from had said it was "hard starting" and had obviously been playing around with fuel because there was a jury rigged hose coming from the fuel pump just hanging there. I'm trying to take a one-step-at-a-time approach to getting this thing back up and running. Putting a battery in it showed me it turns over just fine. The compression tester was delivered by UPS today - so after work I did a compression test on it - and both cylinders top out at about 120 psi. So that seems pretty good.

I did play around some with the alleged fuel issue - and noticed that the fuel pump didn't seem to want to suck any fuel out of a gas can from the jury rigged hose - when I cranked it over. A fuel pump is only like $21 so I got one from Amazon a few days ago and hope to maybe get that installed in the next few days. The fuel lines look pretty rough as well - and I've got some fuel line
coming in the next day or two so I'm just going to run new line back to the tank - and clean the tank out as well - I could see crud floating around in it.

I also scored a halfway decent 46" deck last weekend - I've just got to pickup the correct belts for the deck itself and the mule drive. The idler pulley on the deck appears to be shot too - so I think I need to rebuild that. I'm also going to have to put tires on it - the ones it came with are seriously cracked and one of the fronts has already leaked down to completely flat.

There's a few other odds and ends I've had to deal with (the rockshaft was missing when I got it) - but I hope to get this thing back to working in the next few weeks.