Generally I would agree that MTD are OK, for their price point. I like some design features (Variator transmission, 5/8" belts) and really dislike others (Motorcycle batteries vs. cheaper and higher capacity lawn tractor types; excessive interlocks, plastic front grills).

Using regular FHP belts on the decks has been quite successful and saves a lot of money. However, the variator trans really works better with the OEM belts. The original belts have a controlled slip and are less "grabby" than after market. The most important is engine-to-variator because it acts as the clutch. Variator-to-rear axle is a little more forgiving.

I think Snapper is one of the best Rear Engine Riders made, and probably one of the few left, now that Deere and Simplicity have exited the RER market. Snapper conventional lawn tractors are reasonably good, but at those price points, I would rather go Deere or Simplicity.

Murray is now longer made, the corporate shell was acquired by Briggs & Stratton. They were even less expensive than MTD and AYP, and quality of construction and design reflected that. I think those issues contributed to their bankruptcy filing.

I have a Noma hydro 4-wheel steer that is 16 years old and still going. You cant get them anymore. On today's market I would have to look at the MTD lineup including Cub Cadet. I would go with a hydrostatic transmission. On the blade spindles all you have to do to make the zerk fittings functional is remove the inner seal when doing your first overhaul. Your friend at the John Deere dealer that thinks only john deere high end stuff can be greased that way is wrong. (That's typical of how some John Deere mechanics think.) Snapper riders are pretty good quality but I wouldn't have another rear engine rider if you gave it to me. They are slow.

Murrays are gone.

OPINION: Of the $1200 and lower LT's, Craftsman (made by the old AYP, now Husqvarna) are best of the lot.

Snapper rear-engine riders are quality machines. Tough, long-lasting. Routine maintenace is the key to ANY machine's longevity. If a RER will work for you, the Snapper is a better buy than a lawn tractor of the same price.

gg,glad to hear about the drive belt,as I did replace it with a OEM,as was scared to take a chance as the thing is its very hard to change. The second one gave me a fit as the pulley wouldn't come off the motor shaft like it did the first time,as you know theres not much room to pull or bang it loose. Well it wouldn't budge,so I asked my mower shop how they get them off when they are froze on and they said they heat them with a torch and they come off. Torch sounded too dangerous and could maybe screw up the motor shaft. So after thinking a while,came up with drilling two 1/4 inch holes in pulley in line with motor shaft and then used an old steering wheel puller and and placing two 4 inch bolts thru the holes in the pulley and screwing the nuts with washers. It came off with no fire.
Rd,had thought about leaving the inter seal off and using the grease fitting,but was scared it wouldn't be sealed good enough to keep out dirt. When I get my new one,will probably try do it and be sure to keep it filled with grease. I agree ,I don't like a rear riding one.
twelveguage thanks for input on Snapper.
Thanks everybody for the input.

It used to be that the stack pulley came off the older MTD's and it was more of a fluke if they didn't. It seems as though many of the 2000 plus vintage don't come off. It is easy enough if a guy gets a new one to go ahead and anti seize it up front. In the future should you have a problem for pulley clearance- it is easier to pull the engine bolts and bring the engine up and back whilst the belt is brought around the pulley.I'd second what twelvegauge said about the Sears/ Husqvarna being the best in that price range.

Next time I am at Lows will look at Husqvatna,but have heard that parts were pricy and at times hard to get. Hard to believe that could cost any more than MTD. The man at mower shop who services most of them,said something about the part numbers on the Husqvanta and it was easier to get the parts for the Sears one. Has anybody heard of this? I was Leary of the variable speed on this one,but it gave no trouble other than wearing out one belt a season. Back in 1949,cushman came out with a variable speed one and it was fast but was broke down most of the time,I guess my pld brain was thinking of them. Thanks for info.

I have one of those MTD variator tractors (an old Wards Signature 2000). Rather fond of that machine, in spite of its weaknesses. Upgraded the motor to a Briggs 20HP, after the original 18Hp departed this world with a thrown rod. I used this machine for a while in a semi-pro job of maintaining a very rough and difficult 25 acre ranch area in Hayes Co TX. My friends kept telling me I should upgrade to a bigger commercial mower for that job. But that property devoured mowers... so I figure if it's going to eat my mower, I'll at least let it eat an inexpensive one I that can fix for cheap.
The variator (or Variable Speed Tranny) made me inspired to write this post. I think of it as the poor man's hydro.
I learned to accumulate a collection of spare parts (see above about mowers getting eaten), including all the belts and pulleys and the main variator in the center. I was getting somewhere between 100 and 200 hours out of those drive belts. I got to where I could replace both belts in under an hour.

If you open the access panel where the shift lever is, go in and shoot the belts about once every oil change time with some belt conditioner, and your pickup and pulling power will stay good.
Also I'm sure most folks here would never leave their equipment outside in the weather -- but if you must park the mower outside, cover at least that area where the shift lever is. If rainwater gets down through the notch, it will puddle up on top of the variator pulley and rust the bearings on its spindle. I once picked up a 2'nd MTD tractor for cheap because the owner was convinced the tranny was locked up -- but it was a $7.50 needle bearing siezed up on the variator.
They're elegantly simple and relatively reliable machines.
Carry on!

James,will remember the belt dressing in the future. You are right about the variable speed transmission,as theres not much to go wrong with them other than the belt. I was very leery of it when I first got it,but it gave no trouble at all and replacing a belt every year and a half is normal. You are fast changing the belt,as it takes me at least 2 hours and the time the motor pulley wouldn't come off,about 5 hours till I figured out the wheel puller. Have a dealer friend and he said that belts last longer on Hydro and variables than manual transmissions,who abruptly change the tension in the belt.

I agree with you fellows.
The vari-drive is pleasantly simple.
I know it is called the poor mans hydro but at least the trans can be rebuilt.
I'am going on my fifth season with my vari drive and have not had a single problem even pulling a 300lb lawn striper when I mow.

Agreed, variator is a simple elegant design, and is inherently pretty robust. The belts will begin to slip before the transmission damages itself.

However, the rear axle on these tractors is another story. The previous poster has been somewhat lucky, because he is pushing the envelope towing a 300lb load. Ground engaging equipemnt is an absolute "no-no". Don't even think about a plow, harrow, or other attachment.

The rear axle is a simple F-N-R design from Peerless. Gears are OK, but you'll see a large number of dead MTD's with cracked or broken housings. Complete replacement will cost $400 to $500 and MTD says parts are unavailable. Not entirely true, but MTD numbers will not yield an exploded diagram, and you need a pretty good parts counterman to tell you which parts can be substituted.

Thanks for the info.
Could you elaborate some more on where these trans-axles crack when under extreme loads?
The parts numbers for the upper and lower housings are 719-0580 and 719-0394.

Dynamike asked about where these transaxles break. Since my previous post earlier here, so happens I had to replace the transxale on my MTD (Wards Signature).

I estimate the original transaxle had about 500 hours on it. Hard hours, lots of pasture mowing, heavy grass, and bumps, not to mention my 200 pound rear end on top (mercy).

I had noticed from looking at the rear end of the tractor that the wheels were developing a sort of "sag", kind of like what we used to see on VW Beetles in the rear end. But I'm thinking -- that's an aluminum tranxaxle, is aluminum supposed to bend??

Then one day (to use that proverbial phrase) there I was just mowing along the field, when suddenly WHOMP, the tractor came to a sudden stop. Motor running fine, but would not move the back wheels. I thought, Oh I've popped a belt again. But nope, belts are fine. HMMM, ooh, no.
Tried to push the tractor to the gate, but no go. The rear wheels were locked up. Well, the tranny must have really died this time.

So I muscled it over to the workshop, proceeded to take out the tranny. Opened it up and found it had TWO problems.

First problem was a siezed up reverse gear. I'm trying to learn how to post pictures in messages here, can someone advise? If so, I made an informative picture based on the exploded parts diagram, which shows the siezed gear issue.
The input shaft drives a pinion gear which is in constant mesh with the forward and reverse gears, in between which is a little shuttle gear that slides back and forth under control of the shift lever. Quite clever arrangement, actually. The forward and reverse gears always spin in opposite directions, which means the reverse gear gets over twice the wear on its bushing as does the forward gear. That bushing siezed, which locked everything up.

However, the tranny had bigger problems... re the sagging look. The right (long side) drive axle had chewed its way through the bushing, and was proceeding to eat through the upper part of the transaxle casing. If the reverse gear hadn't failed when it did, chances this would have made a more dangerous failure mode (assuming I didn't eventually notice it).

Bottom line, replaced the transaxle with one of the spares (spares are your friend, remember). I still had to open up the spare, because I had unknowingly bought one from a tractor with right side brake disk and this tractor uses the left side brake -- had to go in and swap the intermediate shaft which mounts the brake. I tell you this job was a long string of little frustrations of close-but-not-quite-right parts.

I've been meaning to get a picture of that axle shaft bushing, will post it up here later if there's interest.

Thanks James for the detailed response.
I have a exploded diagram of the unit so I can visualize what you are talking about.
500 hrs seems very promising to me .
I mow about .9 of and acre and only average about 30-35 hrs a year so a 16 year trans life to me seems reasonable.
I have a yearly habit of removing the rear wheels and greasing the axel shafts to prevent the wheels from seizing to the axel so I will keep and eye on the axel bushings.
Can you tell me what lubrication is used inside the trans?

Hi Dynamike,

That 500 hours figure is conservative. I got the mower from some guy on Ebay [big lesson itself in that, buyer beware if you can't touch it and check it out yourself before bidding]. It was well used -- in fact it was pretty well run down -- when I got it. Motor was blowing smoke like a steam boat, steering was loose as a goose, spindles were shot, and blades were duller than my Aunt Irene's family photo album. So I spent the next few weeks going over it, refurbing and fixing at least the major problems. That's when I put the Sendec tach/hour meter on it, so that 500 hours is what I've put on it since then.

I have a couple of acres I mow with it, plus there for a while I was using it to maintain a 25 acre ranch in Hayes County in TX. That ranch was pretty much a full time job in itself. Very demanding terrain, just about everything you could imagine. Plus it was way, way overgrown when I took the job, so there was a lot of severe bush hogging type work, slogging through field grass as high as the hood. And then there were wide open spaces like the baseball field they had out there, where I could drop the deck low and make it so beautiful... sigh. You know what, that property and if I may boast a little, some of my mowing is actually visible from space, on Google Maps... what a rush.

Anyway that just to illustrate the kind of relationship I've had with this machine... sounds wierd I know, but that's me.

That ranch terrain was so demanding... you could draw an imaginary line on the mower at about the chassis level, and pretty much every part on the mower from the chassis down was basically expendable. Blades. Spindles. Decks. Belts. Axles. Tires. You get the picture. These were the parts I wound up collecting as spares wherever I could find them. I put inner tubes and tractor tire Slime in all the tires. That *almost* eliminated flats, except for when something would reach up and gouge a chunk out of a sidewall.

Eventually for time demands of my real job and family, had to let the ranch job go, and I only mow my own place now. But I should have been doing what you did and pull the wheels off periodically to grease the axles. I was a victim of my own tires, in that I hadn't had a flat in so long that when I replaced the transaxle, I couldn't get one of the wheels off the axle. It's still stuck on there! I used one of my spare wheels to get going again, but I need to find a machine shop somewhere I guess, that can maybe press that old axle shaft off my good wheel.

You asked about what lube to use in the transaxle. I hadn't forgotten your question, just got rambling (old man thing you know). "The Book" says it's permanently lubed, which is of course only valid so long as you don't have to open it up for repair. When I rebuilt this transaxle that I transplanted into the tractor, I packed it fairly full of hi-temp wheel bearing grease. Then I poured in about a half cup of 90W Hypoid oil. This made a fairly cohesive mass of lubricant that both surrounds the large gears for their teeth, and yet flows into the bushing surfaces to lube them. I was able to test the tranny on the work bench by hooking up an electric drill to the input shaft and running the unit through it's functions, to check for smooth shifting and any possible binding. In the 50 or so hours of run time since this repair, I've not seen any oil seeping out from the bushings, so looks like the sealing is ok... good to go. Now if I can just restrain myself from excess speed over bumpy terrain, hopefully this tranny will go another 500 hours :).

Hey sorry for the long post. I find this an enjoyable subject, fun sharing with others with similar interests.

Thanks again James
What my lubrication question refered to was the original lubrication found when you opened the original transmission case.
I suspect it was grease but I'am curious as to what amount.
I was thinking about drilling a small hole ,just large enough to get the hose from my gear oil pump, in the upper housing.
Then filling the lower casing just high enough to reach the rear axel hight.
This should allow all the gears ,including the bevel gears to dip into the lub.
There should be no leakage unless the bushings are bad.
Just an idea.

Dynamike,

Yes, as you noted, the transaxle has no fill ports, or provisions for adding any lube. I guess they presume it's going to be a lifetime lube -- with 'lifetime' presumably meaning until it breaks, haha.

I had thought about doing the same thing you described, drilling a hole in the casing and adding a fill port. Still might do that if I have occasion to open this unit again.

What I found when I opened the original (broken) unit was still a fair amount of grease packed all around the gears as you described. So the *teeth* were getting lubed, but I am not sure if the grease was fluid enough to flow into the journals and bushings. Evidence indicates it was not, considering it was a journal failure that locked up the gearbox.

This transaxle does have a differential with spyder gears, but there's no real hypoid ring gear as with an automotive type differential. So the hypoid rated 90w oil that I added probably was overkill, but I believe it's adding enough fluidity now to get into the journals.

Rusty would say I'm worrying too much again (Hi Rusty!), but I'd kind of be interesting in putting a temperature probe on the case, to get an idea how warm/hot it runs during hard use. You've heard me go on and on about how spares are your friend... so is information .

I drilled and tapped a hole for a grease fitting. I pumped grease in untill it started to come out in various places. took almost 2 tubes. Quieted the transmission down. I was worried about the input shaft bearing getting enough lubrication.

I have a 4HP tecumseh engine on a chipper/vac seems that there is no spark at the plug. Can anyone tell me if they think the ing coil is bad? or what might be the problem. Any help would be nice. Thanks

Thanks for the reply oldhouseboater.
Could you give a few details on where you placed the grease Zerk and what size drill and tap you used ?
Glad to hear that what you did quieted down the trans.
I have noticed a whine in mine ,like the gears are running dry.

I drilled the hole about an inch down from the split in the front of the case. It was a 1/4 28 tap and the drill might have been an "N" but i'm not sure. check the charts. I pumped in about 2 tubes of grease and it came out in about 3 places. I ran it around the yard then pumped in a little more. now nice and uuiet.

Thanks again
Looks like a 7/32 drill will work.