Got my LT-190 up and running, here is what I did. I took the transaxle out and found the pulley spline was all wore our and the pulley was rotating freely on the shaft. I changed the oil to Castrol 5W50 and removed the magnet plug, cleaned some small filings from the magnet, reinstalled it as recommended by a few members, installed a new pulley along with a thin washer under the retaining clip to ensure the pulley does not have any upward movement like it did previously, nice and snug now. Everything works fine. Hopefully it will last a little longer. thanks to all who replied