I posted a short version of this in the "intro" thread, but here's the whole story from the top.
Last summer, I moved to a new home with an acre & change of lawn -- some gentle hills, but certainly none I'd consider steep. Last fall, I bought a LA145 used -- not knowing at the time that "LA" indicated, apparently, really, really light duty. A couple mowings later, I began to experience slowing & shuddering up-hill, eventually winding up with no movement whatsoever. A little googling, and I realized I was dealing with the infamous K46-is-junk issue.
I figured I'd try opening it up over the winter -- found no visible damage inside, so I thought perhaps refilling with some good-quality 5W50 would get me back to running. I was wrong. It's back to basically inoperative.
Having done all this research after the fact, I understand that the LA-series was never really the right choice for me in the first place, but I'm feeling pretty let down by JD and hydrostatic transmissions in general at this point. I'd naively thought that buying a tractor with what seemed like a decent amount of horsepower would've implied a strong tractor, capable of running attachments like a snowblower later on. No way I'd try that on this mower knowing what I know now.
So, my choices at this point, as near as I can tell:
* Rebuild the K46 as-is. As far as I'm concerned, this isn't really worth the trouble, as I expect it to fail again before too long.
* Rebuild the K46 with K57 innards. I've seen posts here with parts lists, etc. -- if I really thought upgrading this to a K57 would be reliable long-tern, I'd consider this, though I guess I've still got an LA145 with no attachments or anything.
* Bite the bullet and buy another tractor - hopefully one with a snowblower, at least. I'm really considering finding an old hunk of iron with actual gears in it. I'd still consider the possibility that another hydrostatic would suck less, but this experience has left me with a bad taste in my mouth in that respect.
It does seem like there are other manufacturers with hydrostats that are at least much less expensive to replace -- maybe this is an option vs. this K46 that costs more to replace than the whole mower is worth (in other words, if you're going to put a disposable tranny in the tractor, make it affordable to replace).
I know this is about 2/3 rant, but I'm really fishing for any helpful advice at this point.
Last summer, I moved to a new home with an acre & change of lawn -- some gentle hills, but certainly none I'd consider steep. Last fall, I bought a LA145 used -- not knowing at the time that "LA" indicated, apparently, really, really light duty. A couple mowings later, I began to experience slowing & shuddering up-hill, eventually winding up with no movement whatsoever. A little googling, and I realized I was dealing with the infamous K46-is-junk issue.
I figured I'd try opening it up over the winter -- found no visible damage inside, so I thought perhaps refilling with some good-quality 5W50 would get me back to running. I was wrong. It's back to basically inoperative.
Having done all this research after the fact, I understand that the LA-series was never really the right choice for me in the first place, but I'm feeling pretty let down by JD and hydrostatic transmissions in general at this point. I'd naively thought that buying a tractor with what seemed like a decent amount of horsepower would've implied a strong tractor, capable of running attachments like a snowblower later on. No way I'd try that on this mower knowing what I know now.
So, my choices at this point, as near as I can tell:
* Rebuild the K46 as-is. As far as I'm concerned, this isn't really worth the trouble, as I expect it to fail again before too long.
* Rebuild the K46 with K57 innards. I've seen posts here with parts lists, etc. -- if I really thought upgrading this to a K57 would be reliable long-tern, I'd consider this, though I guess I've still got an LA145 with no attachments or anything.
* Bite the bullet and buy another tractor - hopefully one with a snowblower, at least. I'm really considering finding an old hunk of iron with actual gears in it. I'd still consider the possibility that another hydrostatic would suck less, but this experience has left me with a bad taste in my mouth in that respect.
It does seem like there are other manufacturers with hydrostats that are at least much less expensive to replace -- maybe this is an option vs. this K46 that costs more to replace than the whole mower is worth (in other words, if you're going to put a disposable tranny in the tractor, make it affordable to replace).
I know this is about 2/3 rant, but I'm really fishing for any helpful advice at this point.
