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I bought a Craftsman T7400 with a Kohler KT735 (140 hours) V-Twin. Runs great no problems and only 140 hours. I also have a Craftsman YT4500 with a Kohler SV735(350 hours) that’s got Terrible rod knock. The engines look identical down to the valve covers but with a different engine shroud. My question is: is it worth investing money in this thing if it’s eventually going to be a pile of problems like the courages or is it an improved design internally? Is it worth swapping a Briggs v twin in it? Also would it be possible to wire in a rpm gauge into the instrument panel to replace the ammeter? I’ve seen it done a few times.

It is a much better engine, the Courages were junk, particularly the 600cc singles. The KT has an emission compliance of 500 hrs., which says something about durability. Keep the oil changed and full, use synthetic 10w30 high mileage and you should be good. I've yet to see one fail.

I've only done tune ups and maintenance on the 7000 series vtwin so far... never had to repair one.

Kohler SV twin aka Courage. Seen a lot of them with lots of hours on them they are noisey. Singles are different seen lots of them go down. 7000 is a better engine.

hlw49 said:

Kohler SV twin aka Courage. Seen a lot of them with lots of hours on them they are noisey. Singles are different seen lots of them go down. 7000 is a better engine.

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So far most Courage singles i've had come in were for leaky float needles, and a few valve cover gaskets, but i always checked those top sump pan screws.

Scrubcadet10 said:

So far most Courage singles i've had come in were for leaky float needles, and a few valve cover gaskets, but i always checked those top sump pan screws.

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Absolutely, that's the main reason the blocks will flex and crack on the high horsepower single 600cc engines.

Craftsman Garage said:

I bought a Craftsman T7400 with a Kohler KT735 (140 hours) V-Twin. Runs great no problems and only 140 hours. I also have a Craftsman YT4500 with a Kohler SV735(350 hours) that’s got Terrible rod knock. The engines look identical down to the valve covers but with a different engine shroud. My question is: is it worth investing money in this thing if it’s eventually going to be a pile of problems like the courages or is it an improved design internally? Is it worth swapping a Briggs v twin in it? Also would it be possible to wire in a rpm gauge into the instrument panel to replace the ammeter? I’ve seen it done a few times.

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The Kohler 7000 series is the updated version of the Courage. In other words, Kohler fixed all the issues. I have never seen a Kohler 7000 with any issues. Biggest problem was a new set of ignition coils.

Tiger Small Engine said:

The Kohler 7000 series is the updated version of the Courage. In other words, Kohler fixed all the issues. I have never seen a Kohler 7000 with any issues. Biggest problem was a new set of ignition coils.

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Well great, thanks for your input TSE. That’s reassuring

They did not make it to work on though. Just finnished one putting head gaskets on it. Have to take the gov control off to get the shield off no 1 cylinder. Kind of a pain to have to do that.

kbowley said:

Absolutely, that's the main reason the blocks will flex and crack on the high horsepower single 600cc engines.

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No the rocker covers leak because shaved gorillas use a power driver to do up the retainers way too tight.
This deforms the cover where the screws go through and chops up the cork gasket .
They are done up to 8 PSI which most blokes can do with their old fellas
I have knocked the dents out of dozens of them then done them up properly and they work just fine
The front 4 crankcase bolts work loose on the older models but it s not hard to tighten them and if you lift the flywheel a couple of drops of blue loktite cures that problem
Biggest problem for me is the massive number of different configurations of the counterweight .
This is a result of penny pinching by the mower companies .
I had one come in with over 3,000 hours on it as it was used to mow a cricket pitch + the spectators area every week for the cricket season then just the spectators section for the scoccer season .
This one had a forged crank
All of the others I have worked on have had cast iron cranks so my guess is it was designed to have a forged crank then to cut costs they switched to the substantially heavier cast crank which threw to balance way out ..
I get a couple of cams in every now & then but it is on par with all of the 31 series B & S deceased cams but the Kohler is a 2 hour job start to finish & the Briggs is 2 hours just to get the engine out .