Engine ideas

[gravelymay]

It may be too close into the transmission.
You can use some cereal box for gaskets to move the engine back a little.
Put one between each match up and you can gain a good bit .
The gear may be rubbing too tight and holding it into high speed.
Thanks Bruce g

 

[Oneaxepony]

It may be too close into the transmission.
You can use some cereal box for gaskets to move the engine back a little.
Put one between each match up and you can gain a good bit .
The gear may be rubbing too tight and holding it into high speed.
Thanks Bruce g

OK - will remove the engine and put in some spacers (i.e extra gaskets). Unfortunately I used Permatex Blue RTV around the gasket and its a nightmare to get this stuff off. So this is going to take a little while. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.

 

[Oneaxepony]

Here's an update of what I did this weekend. Removed the engine and adapters and scraped all the blue permatex off along with the gasket between the crankcase and tranny. Sealed a bolt head that goes into the universal bolt pattern so it wouldnt leak anymore. Prepared two gaskets and re-installed without permatex. Good news and bad news. Good news is that there were no leaks due to the adapters or tranny gaskets. Bad news: tractor still runs at very high speed. Will try one more time by adding a couple of more gaskets. If that doesn't work I'll assume the hi/lo planetary needs work. Due to my schedule it may be a couple of weeks before I can try it. By the way, the Chinese engine started on the first pull and ran beautifully. As usual any comments or suggestions are welcome.

 

[gravelymay]

Hi One
How thick are all your adapter plates including the Gravely engine half.
According to the shaft length yours should be about 4.600.
So if they don't measure that much then you may be in more then a little.
This way you can check without taking apart again.
Here how I figured it.
Shaft of the engine. 3.750
Gear shaft and gear 2.350
total ................... 6.100
minus ..................1.500 that sticks inside of the transmission
leaves..................4.600 spacers to keep engine out from transmission.
Just my thoughts
Thanks Bruce g

 

[may]

oneaxepony

if you are using a bolt to hold your gear on the end of the shaft. It must be flush to the face of the 3/4 shaft if not it will hit the shaft running down thru the center of you transmission and give the same results as a direct drive.
Because it will drag make sure you have an attachment on the tractor with the bolt or clutch on it. Push shaft from rear tranny opening forward to bolt or clutch then measure the distance from planetary gear face to shaft inside tranny. This length must be longer than the length from the face of your gear
to either the end of the bolt holding your gear on or end of the 3/4 shaft
sticking out.I hope this may help.

 

[may]

OK today I finally got the engine mounted and the tractor ran. Special thanks to Gravelymay who machined the gear I sent him perfectly. Below are some pictures to give you an idea of what it looks like. I noticed I have three small oils leaks to deal with. 2 are from the tractor axles and have nothing to do with the new engine. One small leak (a drop an hour) is coming from one of the bolts which goes into the universal bolt pattern. I think I can stop this fairly easily. By the way the 13 hp Blue Max engine started easily and ran great.

I am basing this on the picture to the far left.IF that is how it is bolted on.

 

[Oneaxepony]

Thanks for your thoughts, Bruce. Here's how I set the gear distance. When I first removed the L engine, I took careful measurements of how far the gear protruded from aluminum crankcase. Look at the photo below. The gear is just under 3/16" from the aluminum ring (ignore the bronze bushing). This is NOT the correct distance for the gear. When I opened up the engine I found the set screw holding the bronze bushing had backed out and the gear and bushing pushed slightly into the crancase. Look at the photo again and focus on the gear blade near the base of the left red vertical line. The left 3/4 of the blade looks shiny while the right 1/4 looks dull. This happened because the left part contacted the planet gears in the hi/low but the dull part did not. In other words the gear wasn't in far enough. When I checked all this out I determined the gear should really be about 1/4" from the aluminum ring. This was also the same distance I measured when I bought a 2nd crankcase and gear from eBay, though I dont have pictures of that one. So I think the 1/4" dimension is pretty good. That's where I have it set now. But just in case I'm wrong I'm going to try to add more spacers to cut this back to 3/16". That's my thinking but I've been wrong many times before so we'll see.

 

[Oneaxepony]

I am basing this on the picture to the far left.IF that is how it is bolted on.

The gear is indeed held in by a bolt. The 3/4" shaft stub was cut down to accomodate the bolt which is flush. The system currently behaves as you suggest with the drive gear powering the sun gear directly which causes the high speed. The question is why. Either my gear is in too far, or is not centered and rubs, or the planetary is siezed. I'll try to look at the measurements you suggest. I appreciate your ideas.

 

[may]

I am just guessing here but what if the end of the bolt is not square
to the shaft in side. Do you think it could bind up and make the planetary
gear go around with the motor shaft ?????? i wish i was closer i would come over to check this out i like a mistery LOL i

 

[Oneaxepony]

I am just guessing here but what if the end of the bolt is not square
to the shaft in side. Do you think it could bind up and make the planetary
gear go around with the motor shaft ?????? i wish i was closer i would come over to check this out i like a mistery LOL i

Yes this is possible. I like a mystery too so I'll have to get working to unravel this one. Thanks.

 

[gravelymay]

I checked the clearance between the engine on a old Gravely gear and the planetary Gears there was 1/16 inch.
Also double ck the distance from the edge of the transmission
The engine stuck into the trans 1.11/16
But to the Planetary was 1.3/4
Thanks Bruce g

 

[Oneaxepony]

I checked the clearance between the engine on a old Gravely gear and the planetary Gears there was 1/16 inch.
Also double ck the distance from the edge of the transmission
The engine stuck into the trans 1.11/16
But to the Planetary was 1.3/4
Thanks Bruce g

Thanks, Bruce. Wont be able to do much on this until next week.

 

[Oneaxepony]

Thanks, Bruce. Wont be able to do much on this until next week.

Looked at the hi/low planetary today. I have an extra gravely drive pinion gear so I put it in the tranny and turned it by hand to see what the planetary would do. In one position (not sure if hi or low) the large internal gear was stationary while the planet gear carrier rotated. In the other position the planet carrier was stationary and the large internal gear rotated. As far as I can tell this is working correctly. The springs needed adjusted on the hi/low shift rod but other than that it looks good. So now I am back to the problem being either the gear on the new engine is too far in or it is not aligned properly and rubbing severely. I got a thick piece of card stock (about 1/16") and cut a new gasket out of it to use as a spacer. Will try it out this weekend.

 

[gravelymay]

That is about all I can think of right now.
Another thing you can do is turn the gear.shaft.
off a little if you need to shorten the crank.
It maybe only a 1/16 of a inch.
Here is a couple of pic of what I had in mind but my pictures are not clear.
But my spacer need to be thicker and I need clear pictures
There is about .090 clearance on the Kohler transmissions.
Verse .063 on the model L transmission

Thanks Bruce g

 

[Oneaxepony]

Looked at the hi/low planetary today. I have an extra gravely drive pinion gear so I put it in the tranny and turned it by hand to see what the planetary would do. In one position (not sure if hi or low) the large internal gear was stationary while the planet gear carrier rotated. In the other position the planet carrier was stationary and the large internal gear rotated. As far as I can tell this is working correctly. The springs needed adjusted on the hi/low shift rod but other than that it looks good. So now I am back to the problem being either the gear on the new engine is too far in or it is not aligned properly and rubbing severely. I got a thick piece of card stock (about 1/16") and cut a new gasket out of it to use as a spacer. Will try it out this weekend.

Frustrating day. Took off work a little early to try out spacers between engine and tranny. It took about an hour to mount everthing and add oil. Start up Chinese engine - it runs for 15 seconds then dies. Wait half an hour. Starts - runs for 15 seconds. Wont stay running. Engine has only ever been run twice for a total run time of maybe 10 minutes. Ran perfectly then. So now I have to determine whats wrong and fix it or see if I can get Lifan to fix it. I'm starting to think this project is snake bit...

 

[gravelymay]

Ck your gas dump it and refill.
Bruce g

 

[2manyrocks]

Maybe the low oil shutoff is killing it?

 

[Oneaxepony]

Maybe the low oil shutoff is killing it?

Good suggestion along with Bruce's about gas. I did check the oil level and its good but if the sensor is bad it can still kill the engine. The engine was purchased in January so it may still be under warranty. Dont want to do anything to void the warranty so I need to talk to them about it before tearing into it.

 

[Oneaxepony]

Ck your gas dump it and refill.
Bruce g

Drained a pint of gas out thru the carb bowl. Engine started and ran fine. Wont get a chance to test ground speed until tomorrow. Thanks.

 

[Oneaxepony]

Drained a pint of gas out thru the carb bowl. Engine started and ran fine. Wont get a chance to test ground speed until tomorrow. Thanks.

Tractor still runs fast as if hi/lo is frozen. I do not think the gear is in too far with the extra spacers, hence must be something else. Will think about this some before deciding what to do next.