Craftsman Engine swap 16.5 single to 19.5 dual

[ls1mike]

Long story short.
I have a 19.5 HP turbo cool Craftsman LT1000 that does not have a deck and was missing the deck engagement mechanism. This was not a cable engagement but mechanical linkage. I could not find all the parts I needed to make it work. Well a really clean 16.5 HP LT1000 came up for sale on Craigslist with a blown motor. Picked it up for 200 bucks. Swapped the motor and wiring harness in three hours. Mowed with it 2 hours today. Works awesome. Here are the photos.

Not sure what happened to the 16.5 hp engine. Guy said it just let go one day while mowing. I would say so.






Both of my running riders together.

Now I have the sleeper mower. LOL

 

[spasm3]

Cool Swap! Bet it mows good with more hp! Thanks for posting, this kind of stuff is interesting.

 

[ls1mike]

It mows really nice. This is A Hydrostatic drive, the other mower and the donor mower had a conventional gear box.

 

[bubbatime]

I have that exact same mower with the same hydro static drive, except mine has a Kohler command engine. Father in law was upgrading and gave it to me for free. Great mower.

 

[JR]

three hours not bad.

p.s. how many miles on the ws6



harvey

 

[ls1mike]

Harvey,

68,000. It is a heads, Cam, intake, full exhaust, McCleod twin disk clutch, Ford 9 inch car.

11.60'-11.70s. Daily drove it for years. Now it is only sunny times.

 

[JTK]

Nice work! I've got a 10-12yr/old LT2000. I think the only difference is the 2000 has an engine oil filter. As long as the donor's exhaust and wiring was intended for the same chassis, swaps can go pretty smooth.

 

[69Torino]

Good job on the swap. Looks stock. Gotta love those “light seeking connecting rods”. I bet very little oil escaped when the block was windowed.

 

[jeepman3071]

Likely the balancer came apart, I've seen that on one other OHV Briggs intek. Running low on oil is likely what caused it. These engines have a tendency to blow the head gasket, and when they do they will burn oil. The operator never checks the oil and it leads to failures.

One thing I like about the Craftsmans is how easy it is to swap engines on them, since they came with so many different ones. I've re-powered them with Briggs OHV inteks, Kohlers, Briggs opposed twins, even a Kawasaki FB460v.

 

[CT8]

The v engine is nice.