Since we seem to be on a bit of a mower kick this week, I figured I'd add my own thread to the mix as well while we're on the topic. I've got an offer in on a house that sits on about a 2 acre lot and I currently do not own any sort of a mower, either push or riding. If the deal ends up going through on this place, I'm clearly going to be in need of some sort of riding mower.
So in anticipation of that need, I've been perusing the local Craigslist this week in search of cheap lawn tractors, mostly as a theoretical exercise at this point in time. What I would be looking for is basically the cheapest possible option to reliably get me through at least a season or two worth of cutting. From what I gather, there seems to be a consensus that after about the late 80s the quality of a lot of the name brand machines really declined as they started building them to a price point rather than a standard. My thinking is to grab the cheapest Deere/Simplicity/Cub Cadet/Wheel Horse/ect from the 70s-80s in running condition and have at it.
While I've spent plenty of time cutting grass, I know pretty much nothing about mower mechanicals. What needs to be checked out on these? Any brands particularly desirable or ones to avoid? I see the Briggs twins are poorly regarded in the other thread, any other components like that to watch out for? Care to share your own grassroots tractor projects?
Think of this as a what car thread for mowers lol.
I'm a pretty big fan of my 70s IH Cub Cadet. I have the 149 (14 hp, single cylinder Kohler). I had a problem at the old house of breaking the transaxles on the newer stamped sheetmetal MTD crap, so I looked at who had already solved the problem of chassis flex/broken transfer cases and came up with the tractor pulling guys.
The garden class ones seemed to like to the CC with Hydro, so that's what I got. I paid $800 delivered from the antique machinery show with a cutting deck.
It's been great, although has required some maintenance over the past 5 years or so, everything has been well within my reach. I've rebuilt the carb, and had to play with some old/brittle/shorting wiring. I do believe that I'm not getting a good charge out of the starter/generator, so that'll probably be my project for this summer sometime. Or I'll just keep the solar charger on it like I've done the past two years..
last summer, i inherited a pair of mid 70's John Deere 212 tractors from my mom's boyfriend. he bought one of them new and has used it to mow about 2 acres of grass that whole time. he replaced the deck once and had the engine rebuilt once in that whole 40 years, along with usual maintenance like bearings and belts. it runs great, but he got a deal on a newer (2012ish) Deere and parked the old one. he got the other one a few years ago for spare parts, but never used anything off it.. a couple of blade bearings fried late last fall and i haven't gotten around to fixing it yet. figure i'll just put new bearings in all 3 blades and be good for a few more years.
one thing about this mower: it doesn't have a lot of power. i think it's got like a 12hp Kohler in it. it's not a terribly fast mower... but it has all the torques and a real honest to Dog granny gear in the trans, so it's like a real tractor for doing tractor stuff. and it is heavy for what it is, so pushing it around and loading/unloading into a pickup isn't exactly a treat.
I love our '69 Wheel Horse tractor. Cuts great, and lots of attachments for grading, plowing, shoving snow. Pulls a trailer of wood or gravel around easy peasy, still haven't gotten the hang of backing up with the trailer on though 
We paid $400, and it came with (I believe) a 46" deck and snow blade. We have since picked up a mid-mount grader blade for smoothing out the lumps in the driveway near the road. Apparently I like to toss dirt from the rear tires when I turn out. Who knew? 
It's been dead nuts reliable and just generally fun to ride. Chuck was talking to a coworker about zero-turn mowers, which we used to have one but my legs were not long enough for my feet to touch and the seat was not adjustable. He commented that the Wheel Horse was slower since you can't just zip up to an edge and whip it 180° and go the other way, but that ultimately it didn't matter because I enjoy riding it around so much that he hasn't had to cut the grass once since we got it. 
I have a Simplicity 6200 series with a Briggs flat twin and 48" deck, from the early 80s, which works great for my 1/2 acre lot. Bought for 400 15 years ago.
Also include Jacobsen in your search. My dad has had a mid-late 60s one since '78. It's also very well made, and has a very cool aluminum deck. He re-engined it with a Briggs V Twin several years ago.
I absolutely loved my 1970s IH cub cadet. I had a pair of them at one point, because the deck rotted away and it was cheaper to buy a whole parts tractor than just the deck.Very solid, bullet proof Kohler motor, and so simple to work on. It took care of my 2 acres in about an hour.
When my grandfather died, we got his newer(2004) john deer 155, and it was crap. Give me the manual tranmission and complete lack of safety features any day. Not to mention in the 6 years I owned the john deere, I was never once able to get the deck off myself, usually just lifted the front of the tractor with a cumalong wrapped around a garage beam. Not the safest way to hold something so heavy over your head.
I've got a late 80s Murray. It's an absolute piece of E36 M3. It breaks every year.
But it's the easiest to use rider I've ever had. I guess it's hydro. Push the pedal one way, go forward. Push it the other way, it goes backwards. Leave the pedal alone, it goes nowhere.
Since getting it, I've changed the transaxle once, belts a bunch, tires, and three engines. I hate briggs. Granted, I've never actually paid for one, or had a fresh one, so there is that.
I bought a Toro 8-32 with a rigid grass catcher for $400 and it was awesome.
I ran it for about 5 years before the engine blew (maybe due to lack of oil...doh!) and then easily dropped in another used engine I bought for $50 and then sold the thing for $400. Really regret selling it, that thing worked great.
I replaced it with a used White tractor that I bought for $400 (including grass catcher) and it runs fine. I had to replace the tires, which were basically welded to the axle, requiring a replacement axle, but that was pretty easy and only cost $100.
My advice is to buy a $400 mower, any brand, that runs, has decent tires and a grass catcher. Keep watching CL, they come up often. You can mow for a few seasons with any of them before you decide to upgrade. Don't invest more than that at first, until you run one for a while and decide if you want a hydrostatic transmission, a wider cut path, a different discharge setup, cupholders, bluetooth...
anything w/ a Kohler engine
fasted58 wrote:
anything w/ a Kohler engine
One of the old Kohler engines.
Really anything with a cast iron transaxle and an adjustable main jet will be pretty bullet proof.
