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Someone gave me an LX188. It's been sitting forever. Even the mower they bought to replace it is old. So this one must be ancient. None the less, if you look at a piece of plastic on this thing it breaks. I was seeing if it would fire off and pushed the throttle lever to the choke position, and it broke off in my hand. (and jabbed me in the process)

And what an over complicated mower this this is. A radiator? Come on, it's just a mower. It's got me thinking about taking it to the scrap yard.
But first, I wanna do some research on it. It's got a Kawasaki engine. FD501V-CS00 (FD501V061146)
Says it's got "full transistor ignition." What ever that means.
"Full warning system." Which tells me it's probably got too many sensors.

What I do know so far. It'll fire. But needs a battery and a new +battery connector. The trans neutral lever is in tact and the trans goes into neutral.
It's got two flats and almost every plastic piece is broken. No headlight harness.
There's little rust on it. Seems what little painted surfaces that are on this, got a good paint job. Including the deck.

So it's got some plus and minuses.

I just gotta check out prices for the hood. I think the plastic grill may be in good shape.

Did it sit out in the weather for years ?

the lx188 was made from 92-98

Morganfd9 said:

Did it sit out in the weather for years ?

the lx188 was made from 92-98

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I'm not exactly sure where it sat. He's got a pretty large carport like area, that's jam packed with stuff. His Bad Boy mowers, welders, air compressors, his side by side. And all sort of thing. So it may have been under it.

I'm trying to weld the plastic pieces back together, for experimental purposes. Just to see if it can be done. But it just doesn't matter. It still breaks. Or it'll break right next to it. I think egg shells are tougher than this.

Thats personal man.

At least the hood don't cost as much as the one on the S180. The S180 complete hood set you back around $1135. Just did one on a four month old mower.

Scrubcadet10 said:

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It is. I've got a great one. My 01 dash is so broken up, even the clips for the new dash cover were broken. So it just sort of sits up there. Including the black facer trim around the gauges and the glove box. Glove box is in the back seat. lol

StarTech said:

At least the hood don't cost as much as the one on the S180. The S180 complete hood set you back around $1135. Just did one on a four month old mower.

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I've found on one online for like $60. Complete set. It's gotta be a gimmick of some sort. I'm gonna read through the description very closely before I click the buy button.

Here it is. (air cooled models only) So it won't fit mine.

Flip Manufacturing Upper Lower Hood Grille Fits John Deere GT LX 242 262 275 173 Am117723 AM132526​

That is not the hood that is spec for the LX188. It has item 3 (PN AM117723) and not item 5 which is PN AM117724; unless you cut out an area so it matches item 5.

One would think JD would use better quality material. Who ever made the plastics for these (and Dodge) I sincerely hope they went bankrupt. And the engineers all stumped their pinky toes on their coffee tables the day after.

My hood is too far gone to repair. But found this great video with some extra tips on more than just repairing cracks.

I have an LX188 that my dad bought new in 1997 and it is still going strong. The plastics are definitely not the same quality as the rest of the mower. These were only available from John Deere dealers......not the big box stores and that's why they run forever. I recently replace the upper hood and now am going to replace the lower hood. My dad passed away a year ago this month so I am going to keep it going as long as I can in memory of him.

It's getting harder and harder to find certain parts because they are being discontinued so I hope nothing breaks that is critical and can't be replaced. These were over $4,000 new my friend so in my opinion you can't go wrong putting some money into it since it was free.

I have a second LX188 that a co-worker gave to me because the governor messed up and he didn't want to pay to have it fixed. It's a discontinued part but if I can find one I will gladly buy an upper and lower hood for it too (about $300). That's how much I think of these mowers.

JESSEMMY1963 said:

I have an LX188 that my dad bought new in 1997 and it is still going strong. The plastics are definitely not the same quality as the rest of the mower. These were only available from John Deere dealers......not the big box stores and that's why they run forever. I recently replace the upper hood and now am going to replace the lower hood. My dad passed away a year ago this month so I am going to keep it going as long as I can in memory of him.

It's getting harder and harder to find certain parts because they are being discontinued so I hope nothing breaks that is critical and can't be replaced. These were over $4,000 new my friend so in my opinion you can't go wrong putting some money into it since it was free.

I have a second LX188 that a co-worker gave to me because the governor messed up and he didn't want to pay to have it fixed. It's a discontinued part but if I can find one I will gladly buy an upper and lower hood for it too (about $300). That's how much I think of these mowers.

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I just ordered all the mechanical parts (pulley's and blades) I need to get it up and going. Gonna order a couple of tires for it today (maybe tubes). The hood is in my Amazon shopping cart. Gonna get her all up and going strong before I buy that. But so far it's looking good.
Except one of spindle bolts rounded off. I had to get the 1" impact on it, and the head of that bolt gave me a big FU. So I'll take the spindle out, and give it one right back with a pipe wrench.

Oh, and put on a separate choke cable on it. I don't like cranking it at full throttle.