Lesco 48 inch engine swap

Alex22

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Posting in this section because Lesco is re-branded John Deere.

Long story short I now have a Lesco 48" belt drive walk behind and the engine that came on it was blown up. There is a large hole in the crank case so I'd say that it was run without oil till it blew. It came with a single cylinder 14hp Kawasaki engine.

I picked up a 2 cylinder 23hp (Kawasaki FH680v-bs21-r) engine off of craigslist since that's all that was available with the same bolt pattern and output shaft dimensions at the time I was searching. Adding a battery tray and push to start button would also be nicer than a pull start. The problem is that the engine did not come with an exhaust and I'm having a hard time figuring out what will work and where is a good place to pick up a cheap new or used one.
The engine was off of a rid on zero turn mower, I cannot recall the brand.

-Alex
 

BlazNT

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I have looked for a muffler and one is not listed as a spare part. I also looked it up as a new engine and they do not offer one either. That means the lawn mower maker has to make one to fit. I think you have some building to do.
 

Alex22

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I have looked for a muffler and one is not listed as a spare part. I also looked it up as a new engine and they do not offer one either. That means the lawn mower maker has to make one to fit. I think you have some building to do.


That's the same issue I ran into when searching the parts number listings. The rough thing is that an exhaust pipe and muffler look like they will cost more than the going rate of a used 14hp. Does the 23 hp seem like a good idea to keep persueing or bail?
 

bertsmobile1

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Mufflers are part of the mower, not the engine, the exception to this is when the engines are used on RER's or walk behinds where they come fully self contained with muffler & fuel tank.

Mufflers are not cheap because of the smaller production runs which is why no one ever replaces them till the hot exhaust gasses melts the blower housing.
 

Alex22

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Mufflers are part of the mower, not the engine, the exception to this is when the engines are used on RER's or walk behinds where they come fully self contained with muffler & fuel tank.

Mufflers are not cheap because of the smaller production runs which is why no one ever replaces them till the hot exhaust gasses melts the blower housing.

I understand why they are expensive. I'm here to see if anybody has done something similar that can point me in a direction for which mower brand muffler would be most likely to work for what I'm cobbling together. Or if these types of swaps are just bad ideas and I'm likely to just break something else with the more powerful engine mounted.

-Alex
 

bertsmobile1

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Try chasing up people who specialise in repowering like Small Engine Warehouse, Small Engine Suppliers, Repower etc etc.
Usually they have a generic muffler they can sell you that will bolt on.
Weather it fits will generally depend upon your skills with cut off saws and welders.

All small engines run 3000 rpm to 3800 rpm so a bigger engine will not make any difference to the speed.
It might make a difference to how well the machine works in very hard places.
Usually makers fit engines that are rated at 125% of the peak power requirements of the equipment.
The caveat on this is people who use equipment well beyond the design specs.

I for instance take my mowers through 4' to 10' tall reeds /grass/ weeds which is way beyond their design limits and they do it quite well, provided I go very slowly.
A drastically bigger engine was no faster doing the job as it overwhelmed the deck so I was always stopping to clear it out and used 4 times as much fuel .

My Victa super 24,, what you lot call a rough cut mower is powered by a 6 Hp Powertorq 2 stroke and it will chop down tress up to about 2" diameter although it does eat up blades when I do this.
The same chassis came with a Honda CV 190 or a B & S Quantum also rated at 6 Hp.
neither of these engines work any where near as well as the 2 stroke.
I have even slipped an old 8 Hp SV B & S on there but again it was no faster than the 2 stroke.
 

Alex22

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Update:
The swap is up and running now that I finally made time for this project again. This crossover exhaust pipe has clearance to the machine frame and deck cover and I was able to pick one up cheap off of ebay. Sadly there aren't any of the mufflers used up on eBay at the moment and new ones aren't cheap.
---- Genuine OEM Kawasaki PIPE-EXHAUST 18049-7003 & Plate 13271-7009 FH601v Fh680v
After getting the engine cleaned up and taken apart a bit further I found that the crank seals were shot and the culprit for the oil leak that the previous owner of the engine replaced it for. new seals installed at a slightly different height to find a fresh surface on the crank. No noticeable side to side play in the crank that these engines are supposedly known for so I felt good continuing with this swap.

A generic 3 position switch from Lowes, google search for a wiring diagram and got to work connecting the dots. Just a few cranks and it fired right up.

This engine does require a battery to continue running so a tray will need to be fabricated up, It looks like the factory Lesco mowers that came with key start engines had their batteries on a raised tray over the right tire. For the testing I ratchet strapped a battery to the sulky and ran some extended wires out to it and that setup worked good enough to find out the drive belts to the tires need more tension.
 
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