Repairs John Deere LTR180 - Maintenance Nightmare

Hi Brad,

Looked at the Hustler, great machine, hydraulics sized to keep running, no belts being used as a clutch. Good choice but I need to bag to I have ordered the sprocket set to keep going one more season to sell on in running condition and buy a second hand professional machine with (my dream) high level discharge.
I will start a separated thread on the saga of timing belt jumping due to worn sprockets. Waiting to receive the new sprocket set (a king ransom) to measure the wear.

Lemon lawn is "Class action suit" and is not restricted to cars. "All" it needs is to get enough dissatisfied X300R owners together to pool experience and money to sue JD for faulty/not fit for purpose material.

Just to ad my experience with the trans axel rebuilt. After 10 years of hard used going up hill was getting impossible. Visit to the JD shop: new (no p/ex, no repair possible) Tuff Torq trans axel at a cost fitted at 60% of a new machine! Trade-in value near to zero..... Found lotsofgrass's thread here got my parts and rebuild it parts cost around $100 as I remember. What surprised me was that the failure was due to the steel cylinder block rotates directly on the aluminium body. Even with the best synthetic oil wear (and thus loss of power) will take place after a certain no of hours. Interesting to see that the trans axel next up in the range use a "wear plate". Using the right materials these will last unlike aluminium wear surface has limited life. Design to fail.

All these problems must make JD and their agents very happy: every machine sold garanties a healthy ongoing income.
Well that's what I think,

Roel

I own a JD LTR180. Questions:

- machine has problems to go up small slopes, looks like primary belt is slipping, How to adjust it? Can some one cget me me a copy of the pages in the manual? Or advice?
- machine has a Kawasaki engine FH500V(17HP), it is running great, no maintenance done yet. What does it need except for filter and oilchange?

petervandamme said:

I own a JD LTR180. Questions:

- machine has problems to go up small slopes, looks like primary belt is slipping, How to adjust it? Can some one cget me me a copy of the pages in the manual? Or advice?
- machine has a Kawasaki engine FH500V(17HP), it is running great, no maintenance done yet. What does it need except for filter and oilchange?

Click to expand...

dutzow@schweissguth.com or ebay They have manuals on CD's.

Hello Peter,

Yes difficult to distinguish between main belt slipping and worn hydraulics. First of all no there is no adjustment on the drive belt tension. Tell us how old (estimated hours) your machine is. Over my 15 years (1ha of lawn and 2ha of woods) I have rebuild my gearbox before needing to replace the drive belt. Unlike the deck belt and touthed belt which with my usage last 12 to 18 mois hence the maintenance nightmare.

Engine maintenance: what I do is an annual oil and filter change and clean out (renew every 2 years) the air filter.

Hope that helps,
Roel

petervandamme said:

I own a JD LTR180. Questions:

- machine has problems to go up small slopes, looks like primary belt is slipping, How to adjust it? Can some one cget me me a copy of the pages in the manual? Or advice?
- machine has a Kawasaki engine FH500V(17HP), it is running great, no maintenance done yet. What does it need except for filter and oilchange?

Click to expand...

Send a private message to mechanic mark he'll get you a manual for free

Hi all,
Continuing battle to keep my 17year old LTR180 in working order. First that I like all other users have run into which is the new part n° "direct replacement" timing belt. Odd thing for JD to do but the explanation is simple: the new part is longer and signals a change of strategy by JD. Instead of breaking when hitting a solid object the longer one cannot be tensioned as per the manual and will loose timing easily still requiring regular "assistance" from your JD dealer. As usual JD do not inform of any change of the user manual.....
For the last 5 years I seem to have been losing power (having to slow down when blades hit high grass to ensure that they keep up to working speed). Other things notice:
1) Engine pulley is eating into the timing belt cover.:thumbdown:
2) Deck belt tensioner is adjusted as tight as it will go and yet there is a lot of belt flapping.
3) Higher deck belt wear.
4) The belt cover by your left foot seems too long to fit.
As part of the seasons preparation I looked at lift arm wear:, the 9mm wear had not worried me but when I then looked at pin wear, deck eyes and the wear at the top hing it could explain that the deck had moved forward. As repair and replacent involved many parts and impossible/economically to replace parts(deck!) I decided the lengthen the drop bars by 6cm (just over 2").
Conclusion I got my old mower back: powerful, no clogging. Success!!:thumbsup: Hope my tale will help some of you to prolong the life of your mowers.

Hi all
I realise this is an old thread, but I wish to add my comments (frustrations?) about the LTR 180.

I have had the mower for about 15 years, and in most regards it has never missed a beat. It only does about 40hrs max per annum, so it does not get a lot of use.

The main design issue is the catcher, (or more accurately, how the grass feeds to the catcher) where a previous poster has mentioned when this regularly clogs up (he states 75%, and I agree with that), you have to clear it with a stick of exactly the right length, and basically muck about with it every second fill or more.....
I have made a special stick for this, but it is a real design fault. I have even investigated a 12v conveyor to mount up the tube, but have not managed to find one of the correct specs.
Keep the grass short, dry and if sticking, only mow half a 'run' which keeps the airflow going are the ways I have found to prevent most of the blocking. If the grass is too long, i take off the catcher and have to mow the area twice, once to cut (and have streaming out the back) and once to pick it all up.

I regard this as a real issue with the mower.

Also in regard to this post, are the belts. I have replaced a few deck belts over the years, and now have this sorted. It is much more fiddly than it needs to be, but it is also not a drama. I have yet to do the timing belt, as this seems to be well protected.
I do find the genuine JD belts last longer......and this is not a plug!

However, yesterday I changed the drive belt for the first time (indeed, it was somewhat overdue, but had slipped a pulley and forced me to change it).

What a nightmare!!!!

The design elements of the mower, and the resulting amount of things you have to take off make this quite a job. This, combined with some bolt threads that are unprotected, and therefore over the years rust/get damaged make it a real chore of a task. I still have not got the spring aiding the deck raising pedal back on, as I cannot get purchase on it.

This is perhaps better left to the professionals, unless you like a challenge.

So in summary, i find it a great mower, especially the engine side. I have not had belt consumption issues, and the hydrostatic needs no maintenance, which is great.
The catching is a nightmare, and the changing of the drive belt, but other than that, i would likely buy another.

Matt

Hi Matt,

Yes seeing your hours your maintenance is normal with the usual delight of JD "not designed for maintenance" features!

Your catcher problem seems to be worst than mine. Have you checked you engine full throttle speed? I suspect that you're running slow causing the clogging. Over the years I have found that the catcher full alarm is useful although not very accurate.

As for buying an new one: out of production for nearly 5 years, their new model introduced some "new features" such as blades no longer timed but offset (so it will vibrate like all the others) and a catches fan to create the suction to sent the cuttings to to the catcher (here JD seem to have seem to have done a great job to maintain trafic in their service centres by making it plastic).

Matt seeing your usage you will be good with your machine for many year to come.

Roel