Weird John Deere L130 Transaxle Issue

[JDL130]

Last summer I purchased a very nice used JD L130 for a few hundred bucks from the backlot of my local JD dealer. It had just under 300 hours on the clock and aside from a little bit of deck rust was in excellent shape.

I mowed with it for most of last summer at a house we rented after ours sold and before we settled on a new one, and at about 316 hours I had everything together to completely redo it -- deck belt, 5W50 for the transaxle, spark plugs, all relevant filters, etc. So I "overhauled" it at that time, including replacing transaxle fluid, cleaning the magnet, etc. and things worked great.

Fast forward to this summer, new property, more hilly than the rental property which was a dead flat 1 acre. I'm mowing a mostly flat with some hills/slopes 3/4 of an acre now with the rest in pasture/garden/etc. Tractor was great until this past weekend when I noticed a weird "thunk" that would intermittently happen coming from the passenger side rear either in the transaxle or the wheel. It is most pronounced when switching from reverse to forward, but will occasionally happen randomly during prolonged forward drive.

The transaxle has plenty of power and it usually takes about 1 hour to mow the property we have now (lots of broken up yard, trees, around obstacles, etc.) It does not exhibit any slowing of operation during this time and is as peppy going back into the garage at the end as it is coming out to start mowing.

At first it seemed like the deck was hitting something, or perhaps a spindle problem, but I removed deck, checked all spindles, and have been riding around with just the tractor and nothing attached to it and the problem is still there. I don't pull or tow anything with it as I was well aware of the potential weakness of the K46 when I bought it, so it's a dedicated mower. Plus I have a Kubota B1750 for the heavy lifting/tilling/etc.

I replaced the traction drive belt, thinking perhaps the $22 solution might work -- that the original 330-hour belt was slipping and then catching and slamming the trans. It continues to exhibit the problem although less severely. The pulley on the transaxle appears to be OK and not worn down or otherwise compromised.

I removed the wheel on that side and checked the key, axle shaft, etc., and there's nothing amiss. Might be some more play in the hub area than I'd like but I suppose a washer or two would fix that and honestly, the wheels never mounted on really tight with that c-clip setup they have.

Any thoughts? I'm guessing it must be internal to the transmission, I've checked all external linkages, etc., for binding, proper securing with push nuts/cotter pins etc. and can't seem to find anything amiss. Anything I might have overlooked or any thoughts?

I think I can limp it through this season but not really anticipating spending the $$$ for a new tractor anytime soon. Everything seems to have the garbage K46 now (at least everything in a reasonable price range) and I'm not sure it's really worth it to spend @ $1700 on putting a K-66 in this tractor. The idea of throwing another K46 in for $629 (Amazon price) is getting more attractive.

The Kohler 23HP engine is in excellent shape and I'll probably sell it on Ebay if I do end up junking this one, or keeping it.

 

[Teachu2]

I'm dealing with one that came with the property. The hills here are killing it, If it didn't have the Kohler in it, I'd have dumped it already. I"m considering a K-66 or a new Husq or Kubota or a finish mower to use the Kioti instead. My tiny lawn is handled by a Honda walk behind.

 

[s219]

Honestly, I wouldn't even put $629 into it. That mower barely cost double that when new. The basic L mowers are not well made. Something else will probably fail soon after you replace the transmission.

What might be better is to fix or rebuild the K46. And I'd probably cap the investment at $200 if it were me. You can get parts and rebuild kits from the manufacturer.

 

[JDL130]

That's kind of where I'm at right now. Even $629 seems like a lot, as you say, based on the quality of what it's going into. It's been a good tractor but I don't want to throw good money after bad. Any suggestions on a good replacement? I'm not keen on throwing @ $5k at another JD to get the next level of trans, and $4500 is about the lowest price for one with a K58, which isn't really THAT much better.

I'm just afraid I'll spend 2k+ on something and only get another 300 hours out of it. I thought about a cheap gear-drive Ariens but really, I think hydrostat with a foot pedal is a must for the way our lawn is laid out -- lots of little trees, etc., that you can mow partially under but then have to back out, etc.

 

[JDL130]

What's odd to me is the atypical nature of this failure -- @ 99% of the L130 transaxle threads I've read in the past year or so reference sort of a slow, painful failure cycle where the trans gradually loses power until it just won't do anything anymore. I haven't read of any that made banging/knocking/etc. noises.

 

[s219]

Well, if it doesn't noticeably impact mowing, maybe run with it as long as you can. Normally when they really fail, you'll start to notice slipping on hills, etc.

Another option is to tear it down and see if you can find the source of the noise. Could be a broken piece of metal floating around. If you find and fix the problem now, it could avoid the whole thing grenading in the future.

 

[JDL130]

It's more of an annoyance than anything -- you'll be riding along and *thunk*. Jarring, but not mission critical. I'm thinking of running it the rest of the season and either tear it down over the winter or think about a replacement next year.

 

[JDL130]

I took a look at the drawings and really the most likely thing would appear to be some problem with the differential gears on that side, perhaps a missing tooth or whatever. I might tear into it and see if I can get parts for less than $200. A complete rebuild kit is out of the question as it is now $361 + freight which is a bit high IMO.

 

[RUSSELL SHETTLE]

I just bought a new D130 with the same trans and recently learned about the problems with it. After the initial 8 hours I did the recommended maintenance but I went deeper than that and voided my warranty by removing the K46 trans and replacing its oil with 5W50 synthetic hoping that this will prevent future problems I've read so much about.

Heat is the issue with these trans as I'm sure you all know and is why Tuff Torq recommends 5W50 synthetic. Most people are not going to remove the trans just to change the oil and most of the failures are due to a trans never seeing an oil change let alone giving it a better oil.

I don't care about the warranty. There's nothing I can't fix myself and with the right preventive maintenance (PM) it shouldn't fail but the trans is not a serviceable component and it is not an item listed for any periodic PM to be given by the owner. Why they put in crappy oil to begin with is beyond me, knowing it's weakness to heat.

I took a chance and decided to remove the trans in order to replace the oil after only 8 hours of initial use. It was not difficult, for me anyway. So now I'm using a quality 5W50 synthetic at the beginning in the hope and belief that I can run this trans with zero future problems.

The warranty won't allow you to do this so I can't recommend what I did to new buyers of JD lawn tractors.

The Problem: If you don't already know, is heat. These trans generate so much heat that it breaks down the the crappy oil to where you lose viscosity, not to mention other problems as a result. Much of the problems I've read about have to do with a loss of power after so many minutes of use. This is because the oil has heated up to the point where the loss of viscosity has affected the pump and motor and the tractor slows considerably or ceases to move entirely. I've also read that when this happened to some users, they changed the oil and that brought new life to the trans. That's fine but a late oil change can't put back worn material.

The thing is: The oil in the trans should have been a synthetic from the beginning but JD would rather take you money to replace it or sell you a new tractor and they know most people aren't going to touch it during the worthless warranty period. So I said: "Screw the Warranty" I'm going to replace the oil right away as is recommended by Tuff Torq.

Changing the oil was very easy. The hard part was removing the K46 and reinstalling it but it was not all that complicated.

Ideally, the trans should be designed with a radiator, oil reservoir and pump to keep the oil as cool as possible. There is a YouTube clip out there where someone did just that of their own design but that takes a lot of ingenuity. Like I said, heat is the problem and regular oil they use can't take if for very long.

I wish I could tell you what your "thump" is but I can't.

 

[s219]

The thing to keep in mind is that the transmission does fine if you use the mower for what it's designed for. Where people run into trouble is on hills and in other situations that exceed the transmission's duty rating. This is a basic box-store mower, engineered for it's price point. You can spend more and step up to a higher model Deere for mowing hills and other heavier-duty workloads.