i took a engine off a weed eater deck.and put it on a craftsman deck.now the crankshaft is not long enough blade is to high to cut grass.wheel are adjust low as they can get any idea. engine is 3.0 horse power.
How about something simple? You’ve tried to adjust the wheels as low as they can . . . why not put SMALLER wheels on it an adjust them as low as you can. If your current wheels are say . . . 6 inch wheels, look for 4 or 3 inch wheels. Another simple solution . . . can you shim the engine where it mounts by adding flat steel washers where the engine mounts to the deck? Rocketman>How much height are you talking about?
Check at a small engine repair shop and see if there is a longer crankshaft adapter available. it is the piece the blade goes on and slides onto the crankshaft and also has a keyway in it. They come in different lengths and most small lawnmower crankshaft sizes are 1" I believe. Good luck.
Good used lawnmowers are cheap.
No matter what you do with this engine swap, this crankshaft will always be too short for the deck you are trying to make work. That means you’ll probably have trouble with the cut grass not exiting properly and instead clogging the underside of the deck, requiring you to shut the thing off every few minutes to clear it. It’s not worth the effort.
Yeah agree. Paper has a used one for $20. I guess you could extend the blade adapter. Whatever is attached to the crankshaft that the blade is attached to-put a spacer in there with longer bolts to lower the blade. Spacers can be anything like nuts, bunch of washers, etc. Visit the local hardware store. Just make sure the spacers are all the same thickness and that the blade is still centered on the shaft.
As you have found out, different makes of mowers have engines with different shaft links. I was given a LawnBoy mower with a 2 stroke engine and the owner had ruined the engine by forgetting to mix oil with the gasoline. I had an old MTD mower with a rusted deck but a good Briggs and Stratton engine. The Briggs and Stratton bolted right up to the LawnBoy deck. I was able to use a universal fit blade. I was also given a Craftsman with a blown engine and had another MTD with a bad deck. I was able to fit the engine from the MTD to the Craftsman. However, the Craftsman was self propelled and I wasn’t able to fit a pulley to drive the self-propelled mechanism, so it became a push mower. I gave both mowers away.
The mower I use is a Homelite Jacobsen that is a mulching mower. The shaft length was longer than the replacement engines that I saw at my local farm store. I finally bought a short block for the mower. SInce the deck is cast aluminum and the mower is great for mulching up leaves in the fall, I decided to save it even though it is over 20 years old.
If the replacement engine fits the deck so that the mower is operational, that’s great. However, I wouldn’t go through the trouble of buying adapters if a used engine on a used deck doesn’t work correctly due to shaft length.
Check the internet for the right engine. Or, check for a local shop that sells replacement motors. We have on up here, R&R Publoc Wholesalers, that sells replacement one-lung engines of vaious sizes, makes, and shaft orientations.
12 years ago I bought a cheaply made used high wheel mower with a Tecumseh engine for $25. I needed something with those big back wheels to deal with a woodsy one acre parcel overgrown with assorted knee high weeds, complicated by pine cones, abundant fallen twigs and branches, etc. For $25, I didn’t really care if it got trashed. It did the job for which I bought it, and kept right on going. I use it regularly to mow “the woods” on that property, a few times each year, to keep the property looking as nice as the house deserves. It has long since earned a name: The Beast.
I recently used The Beast to plow through one area especially dense with tall woody weeds, tangles of creeping ivy, tree seedlings, branches as large as one inch, and accumulations of partially decomposed needles and twigs several inches thick. It was so dense, the job took me about 90 minutes to do an area the size of a big two car garage.
In an area under a giant pine trees where branches and cones and needles and other woody debris collect often, I pick up the larger limbs and use this mower to grind up what’s left.
To date, I’ve probably spent no more than $85 in repairs, including welding the handle and the deck, plus carb cleaning with new float and bowl and fuel filter at a trusted local shop. I’ve replaced the spark plug only once. It’s ok on oil consumption, and I sharpen the blade myself.
Just yesterday afternoon I used it to hack my way through thick blackberry plants and other tall weeds on another parcel, hitting the occasional rock, branch, or unseen scrap of wire fencing buried in the debris, and sometime doing a little regrading of the soil.
That mower starts on the first pull EVERY TIME.
Like I said, good used mowers are cheap.
What I’d do if in your position is show it to my local lawn and yard equipment rental shop. You know, the place you rent the garden roto-tiller in the spring. The mechanics there fix small gasoline engines all the time, it’s in their job description, and usually they offer good experienced advice on small engine repair. I rebuilt a lawnmower engine right down to new piston rings one time, and that’s the place I got the advice and even the parts.