Kohler magnum-Vertical to horizontal

[Tractorkid1250]

Planning on swapping a Magnum 18 or 20 into a John deere, but most of them around here are vertical shaft. I would need to swap one to horizontal. I know the intake, exhuast, and oil dipper would be wrong, but they are pressure lube, right? What else would need to change?

 

[Rivets]

Entire fuel system, plus just because they are pressure lubed does not mean they can be interchanged. How would you mount it? Exhaust system would be totally different. Personally I doubt it can be done without great expense.

 

[Mudrig150]

Man, I was stupid. The only things that need changed are the oil pickup, intake, exhaust, and front cover. The oil passages are the same, crank is the same, literally none of these engines have oil dippers, no idea what I was talking about there. No idea what you meant by "entire fuel system".

 

[bertsmobile1]

Have a close look at the pars break down for the different engines.
In particular where the oil pick up is.
Me thinks you will find it in the middle of the sump next to the crankshaft.
That would place it 2" higher than the oil level with the crankshaft horizontal.

Back in the old days several companies like Onan & Honda made universal engines that could be changed from horrozontal to vertical easily.
However the market would not pau for these top quality engines so thay were abandoned in favour of cutting every possible corner and cheapen the product down to the barely able to do the job asked level to get them cheap enough for the market to buy.
Thus there are no more Honda or Onan vertical engines.

Next there is the actual load bearing of the crankshaft to consider.
Verticals take the thrust on a boss on the end oof the crank.
Horizontals take it on the actual journal .
The top bush on verticals is lubed by splash filling a well
This can not happen when the engine is turned on it's side.

Then there is the actual quality on the parts themselves.
Horizontal cranks are generally forged and designed to run 8 hours a day 7 days a week for 10 years.

Vertical cranks are usually cast which cuts the cost of a crank by 2/3 and the crank is near 1/2 the price of the engine.
The vertical cranks are also designed to run for 10 years , but because they are only used in mowers, the 10 years is 2 hours a week for 30 weeks a year.

To save money a lot of makers use the same castings for both engines but they get machined differently.

And yes I know ther are lots of monkeys who learned to use a video camera and posted videos of them converting engines .
They never do another one a month latter when their conversion fails and the engine self destructs because that would damage their own belief in their infalibity.

 

[Rivets]

What I meant by needing a fuel system change was that you would need to change the carb. Vertical engines and horizontal engines do not use the same jet sizes in their carbs. Most times the choke and throttle linkages are not set up the same, plus governor setup is different.