LX 178 TUFF TORQ transaxle SQUALLING

redhair

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Jun 11, 2017
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Old faithful original owner 95 model without warning started to squall terribly from transaxle during mow and came to a stop. Ruled out belts, pulleys and such. Hold down on seat, press fwd pedal slightly, movement and no odd noise. Sit on seat, press fwd pedal slightly, moves one or two feet, starts to squal and stops moving. Stomp pedal, no movement, loud squall.
Pulled the transaxle, opened it up and it looks good. I was surprised how clean the oil looked and no metal on the magnet (I had never changed the oil and had added very little over the years). Only questionable part to me was: on one of the center case bypass valves, there is very slight scoring on the walls. The valve will fall out if you pull on it. (I emailed Tuff Torq and they replied that the scoring is bad and the valve coming out is correct)

Tuff Torq quoted $600 for rebuild kit. In all my searching, I don't recall anyone mentioning the squall. Just loss of power(movement).

I love this mower, easy to work on and it's worth the $600. Anyone have experience with this? It is hard for me to get that the slight grooves in the bypass would cause this failure with no warning at all

Thanks
 

bertsmobile1

Lawn Royalty
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Nov 29, 2014
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If you still have it apart, look at the swash plate.
Usually you get wear between it and the valve chest .
There is nothing to seal the oil flow other than the close fitting of the plate & body.
eventually errosion happens ( faster if there are particles in the oil ) and the oil pressure leaks out between the two surfaces.
 
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