cub cadet 6.5hp roadside find...

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meep

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Ok,

I came across a discarded cub cadet self-prop'ed mulching push mower. We need a mower so I was ecstatic... handle was broken and the owner said they her husband isn't "handy," it's ours.... looks very clean, no scratches, rubber tread on wheels suggests 2 years old or less!! RWD. Wow.

Take it home. Try to start, fires the first time but it really wants to kick backwards unless you can give it a really swift pull. yanks hard against my arm. Ouch! no compression release on start. Def not a honda or robin engine...

After I figure this out, I start it by rotating past the compression stroke, then yanking and releasing. starts w/o the choke. idles.

Where's the throttle control. oh, doesn't have one. then how does it achieve operating rpm? oh, needs a spring. why is the spring missing, oh, completely exposed throttle mechanism with a grade-school excuse for a guard. Who made the engine? no brand posting anywhere on it! carb is foreign-made...looks exactly like a honda carb. my guess is chinese imitation.

So the question is-- is it worth the $35 bux (?) for a handle, $10 for the correct spring, and hassle of likely repeated handle breakage and potential starting woes (I have poor wrists) or do I send it back out to the curb????

I thought cub cadets were supposed to be good machines??

Mike
 
Welcome to the world where EVERYTHING is made CHEAP.
Home Depot, Lowes, any big box store...It isn't about quality, it is about how CHEAP you can buy it.

My father had a Lawnboy mower where every 3 years, like clockwork, he would have to replace the handle mounting brackets. They would snap off, cheap pot metal, and the only place to find them was online for $35 a pair.

He eventually went to a lawn store and bought a Toro recycler with a Kohler engine, pretty pricy, but he will probably give it to his grandchildren.

You just figured out why the other guy bought a new mower. I expect the issues you have will reappear in a few years. You can always try to build yourself a new handle, but my experience with cheap machines is that you are always replacing something. The real kicker is that Factory parts are expensive and are the same junk that came with the mower.

You are better off getting a expensive mower from a commercial lawn supply store that will cost 2x what a cheapo mower will cost. The cheapo mower will cost the same amount over time, just that it will gradually bleed your time and money over several years before you break down and buy another mower (another cheap one) and so the cycle will continue.

I have had bad experiences with cheap mowers. Their engines run, but that's all that works properly.

If you can get it to work without buying the parts, that's great, keep it. If you need to order parts be very weary of how much you spend. Those parts will probably break again.
Good luck with that one. I have been in a similar situation.
 
Got a model number on the mower, or a picture of the engine?

It might be a Chonda knock-off engine from China, or it might just have a mechanical problem (over-advanced ignition timing?)

Cub Cadet *used* to be a great brand, but its been a long time since they were part of International Harvester and I really don't know much about their recent products at all. Looks like they're part of MTD. For whatever that's worth.
 
Originally Posted By: meep

I thought cub cadets were supposed to be good machines??

Mike



It's just like any outdoor power equipment. Each manufacturer makes an El'Cheapo price-point series and they make some high end good stuff. You notice this most with John Deere. People buy a $1200 home improvement store JD and expect it to be of the same quality as a 25yr/old dealer bought Deere. I wouldn't dump too many resources into that Chonda engine when you can get a new replacement engine for under $100.

Joel
 
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I just haven't been able to junk it yet. Started to pull the lid to get to the flywheel last night. I hope I don't need a puller... a prybar and hammer is what I'm hoping... I may pick up a 12" iron pipe and just "splint" the busted handle with bolted-on pipe and 1/2 doz stainless pipe clamps. Only thing I should have to try on the engine will be the spring that sets rpm by working against the governor... may see if a local shop carries the spring. I don't want to mail order a $5 spring with 10$ s/h and 8$ factory markup.

BTW it's a cub cadet:
12A-18MC056
959-435

It's be nice if it'd run for a while... we are borrowing my wife's x's mower and it's a little awkward...

Mike
 
You should pull the cover and look at the flywheel key. It shouldnt have kickback like that..


Edit: nevermind, it helps when you thoroughly read someones post. Duh.
 
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pulled the flywheel last night. Nut came off surprisingly easy, but I had to stomp on the prybar for a few minutes to break the flywheel loose. Key was fine. On reassembly I noticed about 4° of play, so I held it "back" (retarded) as far as I could while tightening the bolt. Guesstimate 70 ft/lbs. Then pulled the coil to see if it was adjustable. There's no points or similar mechanism that I could see--- how does it know exactly when to fire? slid it "downwind" maybe 1mm or so, all to retard the timing as best as I could.

There was a sealed cover near the crank, flush with the surface of the top of the crankcase. Wonder if there was some sort of magnetic pickup in there with timing adjustments? No wires into the cover or anything.??? My instincts told me to not bother.... now wonder if I should have-- 1.25" by 2.5" in size, 2 10mm nuts held it on.

NO MARKINGS of engine manufacturer, but the machining was nice. No burrs, clean casting. Some vertical play of crankshaft--1.5mm tops. Generous blower fins on the flywheel, much like a robin-subaru motor, and less than 1mm clearance set for the coil. Metal cover on the plug boot. Full-height dipstick, and a drain lug at the bottom of the dipstick. OHV, shallow cover, octagonal shape, not rounded like a honda. Diagram showed separate rocker arms, unlike the honda which uses a single cantilever to hit both valves. Fuel tank was tall and slender. Muffler discharged straight ahead, not to the side. No compression release on startup. Any guesses?

Found the throttle spring for $4.38 online, $8 shipping.
 
People put stuff in the garbage for a reason. I would personally throw it out and go on craigslist and buy a used mower for the money you would be putting into that one. Depends on what your time is worth to ya...
 
I think $25 is my cutoff... if it'll mow for $25 I'll keep it... we're currently using a borrowed mower....
 
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These use electronic ignition and are "Waste Spark" systems. They fire the plug at TDC and BDC of each rotation.
Quote:
A wasted spark is when in an ignition system in a four-stroke cycle internal combustion engine spark plugs fire on both the exhaust and compression strokes. The extra spark on the exhaust stroke has no effect and is thus "wasted". This design is simpler than a conventional ignition system, but the extra sparks can reduce the lifespan of components (contact breaker, spark plugs)


Only adjustment is the gap, Loosen both bolts and put a credit card (Business card preferred)between the coil and the spark plug flywheel (sorry, I knew what I meant but typed thw wrong thing), snug it up to the card and tighten the bolts.

That cover youre talking about is most likely The CCV, or a pushrod cover.
 
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Cub Cadet is MTD's "Premium" brand. It should have a better quality B&S engine rather than their least expensive engine, and definitely NOT a foreign knock-off.

That being said, I once owned a Bolens mulcher when they were a stand-alone manufacturer and a premium brand. A ring snapped on the piston and trashed the B&S engine. One symptom was excessive kick-back.

I discovered that Bolens was the only mower manufacturer who used this particular B&S engine, the one with a PTO exiting the side of the vertical shaft crankcase. No replacement engines were available and the only repair option was to buy an all new engine PLUS a conversion kit, then dissamble the new engine to place its internals in the crankcase of the conversion kit, add the PTO parts from the kit; then sell the surplus new crankcase, crankshaft, and other parts back to B&S for a pre-determined credit.

You guessed it. An all new mower was cheaper than the cost of creating a Franken-motor. My beloved Bolens went to the scrap metal dealer.
 
"Cub Cadet is MTD's "Premium" brand. It should have a better quality B&S engine rather than their least expensive engine, and definitely NOT a foreign knock-off."
Look up the model numbers in google, the motor is widely discussed. I guess its pretty hard to get parts for the motor.
 
if its got the briggs intec engine ithe plastic valve timming gears could be stripped. this happened on a pricey deere mower i have
 
Cub Cadet is a MTD Brand. This engine is a chineese engine and is a MTD engine. MTD has their own brand of engine now. Parts for both the machine and the engine can be obtained from a MTD dealer. As for the engine if the flywheel key is ok, they also had an issue with the valves coming out of adjustment so a simple valve set could fix your problem and this will be a repeated maintenance item you will need to do. This is not hard to do and I believe if you don't have a manual you can find it on their web site. For some reason those springs come off also but that is an easy fix to replace it. Also make sure the blade and/or crankshaft is not bent and the blade adapter is not loose or broke as these will cause kickback issues also.
 
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