83 TroyBilt Horse with 13 HP Honda

pauliefitch · Apr 2, 2016

thanks

Sawyer Rob · Apr 2, 2016

BCSSHOP said:
Secondly be careful adding more load to the TroyBilt tiller drive as the brass gear wears rather quickly in really heavy going. They even have been known to split in two. I used to rebuild the TB transmissions every year for someone who tilled gardens for hire. The life in his usage was about 400 hours using three set of tines and two or three belts.

This was our experience too... Back when we had BIG gardens, we wore one completely out! The bronze gears were worn down and we had to add oil to it every time we used it, because of the axle bush's leaked ect......it's long gone!

I bought a replacement "Horse model", but once I had to use it, I went right to a Howard 3 point tiller! SO, the replacement "Troy Horse" tiller has sat in the barn ever since, barely used!

I keep saying I'm going to get it out and sell it!

SR

5030 · Apr 3, 2016

When it was Garden Way, it was a quality machine, it's not anymore, just expensive.

Sawyer Rob · Apr 3, 2016

5030 said:
When it was Garden Way, it was a quality machine, it's not anymore, just expensive

I totally agree with you, todays Horse tillers are NOT what they use to be! But, both of the ones here on the farm, were Garden Way made tillers...

SR

kmiz · Jul 3, 2019

Crazy like a Horse said:
I replaced the 7 HP Kohler engine on my Horse tiller with this 13 HP Honda engine.

I've since named my tiller: "Atilla the BeastMaster"

More Power!

Nice job. What did you do with the engine shaft? that Honda has a 1" and the tiller's pulley is 3/4" Did you bore out the pulley or somehow turn the shaft down to 3/4"? I just repowered my tiller with a Kohler command pro 7hp. Very nice motor but it just doesn't have the power when the tiller goes down deep, especially in clay. I am looking for an 8-9hp motor but they all have 1" shafts. Hope to hear from you, thx Kevin.

kmiz · Jul 5, 2019

Nice job. What did you do with the crankshaft. the troybilt takes 3/4" shaft and your Honda has a 1" shaft. did you turn down the crank or bore out the pulley?

svlsmokey · Apr 19, 2020

Crazy like a Horse said:
pat59.....The Honda engine is a 13 gross HP GX390 I bought from the Small Engine Warehouse. It came with a pulley and mounting plate already installed. The installation was fairly simple and all I had to do was adjust the engine pulley slightly to line up with the transmission pulley. I don't think they still sell this engine but you may be able to find a different one.

CLAH

What did you do about the lager drive shaft diameter? Did you bore out the pulley to fit the 22mm shaft?

MADTHUMPER · Jun 18, 2025

I know this is an older thread but I have an 86 TroyBuilt Horse by Garden Way with an 8 hp B&S motor , I've removed the B&S to retrofit a honda GX 270 8.0HP motor i had on a commercial cement mixer. , stupid me sent the engine out to have the pulley bored out to 1" instead of the ¾" output shaft the B&S engine had without first checking to see it the mounting bolt pattern was the same , from reading it seems apparent that I'll need an adapter plate to mate the Honda to the tiller, so I've seen most use a piece of 1" steel plate for the adaptor, how to you compensate for the 1" offset between pulleys for alignment ?? Are you adding an 1" spacer behind the friction wheel attached to the engine ? . Thanks

2manyrocks · Jun 18, 2025

I don't know if the Briggs has a different mounting pattern than the Kohler, but I mounted up a HF greyhound engine directly to my Horse that had a 7hp kohler without any adapter plate and reused the existing shims between the pulley and the engine plus added another 3/4 id engine shim to get the pulleys aligned.