Super awesome. I thought it might not be rocket science to do this conversion. I suspect there are a lot of people happy with their mower, except for the transmission.
It just took time to modify some of the items for this model. We could have purchased one that would have been a better fit with less work, but it was twice the price. You could also upgrade to something stronger than the K46. But it was a cheaper alternative than throwing out the mower.
Defiantly an upgrade, however from the extensive research I've done the best variant of the K46 is the K46D "auto-locker" wich is a glorified way of saying, they removed the spider gears and put a clutch in its place... So when turning the inside wheel slows down, if the resistance is greater than 60ft lbs (i.e. dry surface with traction) the clutch will slip allowing the wheels to spin at different speeds and turn the mower, otherwise its permanently locked. It will eventually wear out the clutch.. however it will still drive with 1 wheel indefinitely, BUT the biggest failure point of all for the regular non-locking K46, is the powdered metal used in the spider gears, they tend to get shredded and spue shards of metal all over the case and get sucked up in the hydraulic-oil pump and sent into the sensitive piston areas, this scratches the cylinders walls and the seal for the pistons are gone then the tractor will start to seem sluggish and not go well up hills due to the fluid by-passing the pistons no hydraulic pressure is made anddddd its re-build time yet again. From what I gather the K46D removes this issue all together, although its still suggested to add the oil drain plugs offered by Tuff Torq and regularly change the oil and wipe off the magnets. I would highly recommend using this transmission on any future swaps rather than the regular K46. A place to find them used would be Husqvarna 200 series tractors, with blown Briggs/kohler engines... Thus the tractors are usually almost free.
Super awesome. I thought it might not be rocket science to do this conversion. I suspect there are a lot of people happy with their mower, except for the transmission.
It just took time to modify some of the items for this model. We could have purchased one that would have been a better fit with less work, but it was twice the price. You could also upgrade to something stronger than the K46. But it was a cheaper alternative than throwing out the mower.
Plastic spoons tell us all we need to know
Use once and trash it
Lololo
This is a dam tuff job
Yup, totally agree.
Just out of curiosity did you price out a better hydro line a k66?
Yes, and this was, at the time, the best deal.
Defiantly an upgrade, however from the extensive research I've done the best variant of the K46 is the K46D "auto-locker" wich is a glorified way of saying, they removed the spider gears and put a clutch in its place... So when turning the inside wheel slows down, if the resistance is greater than 60ft lbs (i.e. dry surface with traction) the clutch will slip allowing the wheels to spin at different speeds and turn the mower, otherwise its permanently locked. It will eventually wear out the clutch.. however it will still drive with 1 wheel indefinitely, BUT the biggest failure point of all for the regular non-locking K46, is the powdered metal used in the spider gears, they tend to get shredded and spue shards of metal all over the case and get sucked up in the hydraulic-oil pump and sent into the sensitive piston areas, this scratches the cylinders walls and the seal for the pistons are gone then the tractor will start to seem sluggish and not go well up hills due to the fluid by-passing the pistons no hydraulic pressure is made anddddd its re-build time yet again. From what I gather the K46D removes this issue all together, although its still suggested to add the oil drain plugs offered by Tuff Torq and regularly change the oil and wipe off the magnets. I would highly recommend using this transmission on any future swaps rather than the regular K46. A place to find them used would be Husqvarna 200 series tractors, with blown Briggs/kohler engines... Thus the tractors are usually almost free.
Good suggestion.
I think you ment the K46DV, or DI the "D" is the regular open diff.
Transmission for these is $500