Need a mower guru!!

NeedAdvice

Forum Newbie
Joined
May 6, 2018
Threads
2
Messages
4
Two questions in one post.
Whats the best engined new mower on the market? Almost time to replace the ol POS Crapsman lt2000 as after I just replaced the cam again its making a bad banging sound and I just don't care anymore once it explodes its off to the scrap metal pile. Looking for a 42 inch or smaller mower with an engine that does not have a compression release on the cam. My entire property is one big hill and I use a mower in a 50/50 mix of hauling tools, supplies and mowing. I start and stop the engine a lot and this is why I think the compression release on the cam has broken 2 times in 6 years.
I like the Cub Cadet XT1-LT42 so far by reading up on it but I think the 1 1/2 second starter delay will drive me crazy.
Second question. Is there a better engine that directly fits a LT2000?
 

bertsmobile1

Lawn Royalty
Joined
Nov 29, 2014
Threads
64
Messages
24,647
IF you have big hills then you will need a mower with a horizontal shaft engine.
When you tip a vertical shaft engine at even modest angles the oil pump ends up out of the oil so momentarily you are in a low oil condition, and all of these add up over time leading to excessive wear.

Down side is because horizontal shaft engines go into things that can be required to run 24/7 they are built to a quality standard, not to a price limit, like mower engines and thus are a lot more expensive.
With mower engines ( and mowers for that matter ) you will never ever get anything better than what you pay for.

The LT was a low end mower so you got exactly what you paid for.
The absolute best engines used in mowers were the Onans that had ball & roller bearings on the crank.
Because they were the best , they were the most expensive.
Because they were the most expensive the sales ended up being so low they went out of business.
The next best were the Honda's as they were the same quality vertical shaft to horizontal shaft and again they refused to cheapen their brand name by making garbage engine to the price mower companies will pay.
So they exited the market

The market is so cheap that there are no domestic grade mowers with high quality engines and in fact they are not much better till you start spending $ 15,000 .
IF you have a lot of hills and do a lot of towing then you would be better served looking at a ATV or Quad bike and a tow behind mower.

Finally the LT 2000 series were not POS.
As far as mowrs go they were quite good for what they were designed to do, mow fairly flat grassed areas up to 1 acre
After all it was an LT, LAWN TRACTOR and LAWN TRACTORS were not designed to be tugs, that is what the more powerful more robust GT ( GARDEN TRACTORS ) were designed for.
So don't complain if you bought something that was not up to the job in the first place and it failed to do the job it was not designed to do without problems.
 

NeedAdvice

Forum Newbie
Joined
May 6, 2018
Threads
2
Messages
4
What I am really looking for is a mower that does not have that flimsy compression release part on the camshaft.
I get that mowers under the practical price mark are all full of issues causing short life of the parts. If mowers were designed and built to automotive standards people would only need one mower in a lifetime.
Having said that I am ok with replacing the motor every 5 to 10 years and preforming repairs to it on the outside even head gaskets to overhauls, its just that hoaky tiny springed compression release part on the cam that gets me as that part has fallen off twice now. I've even pondered removing the compression release part and just restricting air during cranking to it to get it to turn over to start.
After I wrote this is went out and did some diagnosing on the engine and found the rod, wrist pin and "bearing/bushings" are still tight I think its the counter balance thats banging away. I didn't visually see any damaged caused by the last failure of the cam part.
Its just me and another person who uses it and when mowing it takes all af about 20 mins to do the whole lawn and we are constantly changing the mowers angle as there are no long runs back and forth required so I don't think its an issue of oil starvation.
I would have never bought this but it came with the house and the last owners had just bought it so looking for a decent mower was just one less time consuming thing to do. But I am surprised just how crappy this motors design is as I still have a Craftsman push powered mower thats 21 years old now and it still fires up on the first pull and the only parts required were non engine related.
 

bertsmobile1

Lawn Royalty
Joined
Nov 29, 2014
Threads
64
Messages
24,647
It all depends upon the size of the hills.
I killed a couple of engines before I twigged that a large area shallow sump would be very sensitive to tilt angles.
The fact that you have replaced yours twice and thousands of people never have speaks volumes towards it being a site / user problem and not a design fault.
Having said that a lot of V twins have no compression release.
However , if you do a lot of towing then a GT will serve much better than an LT as they have substantially stronger drive systems.
As for built in obsollesence , not sure weather it in mower company driven or cheapskate customer driven.

Cheapest or best enquiries here would be around 500 to 1 in favour of cheap
 

NeedAdvice

Forum Newbie
Joined
May 6, 2018
Threads
2
Messages
4
When the compression release flings off its pretty much game over for the average person. I suspect most people who have had this problem have either just replaced the mower or taken it to a shop. But I will admit something I have withheld. The other person who operates this mower has a habit of not disengaging the blades when backing up and I myself am guilty of doing it a few times and it backfires when doing that and I suspect the comp release is abused when this happens.
 

cpurvis

Lawn Addict
Joined
Aug 25, 2015
Threads
21
Messages
2,256
Compression release shouldn't be a factor at mowing rpm.
 

txzrider2

Active Member
Joined
May 1, 2017
Threads
2
Messages
54
you can always stick a $700 HF 22hp Predator vtwin on it... it will be all the power you will need and may last you the life of the mower.
 
Top