Yeah I work in the auto industry and I've seen strange stuff happen. Sometimes by a disgruntled employee but more often simple chance. A nut could have fallen off an assembly machine and bounced out of sight? It was my 50 hour change so an oem filter. Anyways as you said noted obvious harm was done. It was big enough that had it gotten in moving parts it would have really broken something. Small chance it was something that did not come from inside the motor! Have to consider all possible causes. As for shaft drive I'm not seeing any benefit and a few things that are a pita. The set screw that holds the shaft is not as easy as a belt release handle. A belt release did not require a wrench. When the deck is off I still have a shaft sticking out to catch on things. Deck itself is still belt driven so no real improvement in power transfer. Not that I would want a solid drive as sometimes I hit some pretty big rocks. Pulling the deck is a job so I suppose it is not unreasonable to have to get down on the floor with a wrench. As a younger man I might not have even noticed that sort of thing. Not that I'm THAT old but I do seem to be getting there faster then I thought I would. Golden fix for the shaft would be a button or lever to disconnect and move the drive shaft to a safe storage position. Some idiot would probably hit the button and then want warrenty service for a non-functioning deck... I recommend the 3pt kit if you have any amount of garden to work up.

Even without the powerflow unit, you may have trouble. The 48" measurement is the cut width. The "extra edge" of the deck probably pokes out another 1" on either side. Then there's the standard discharge chute, which (eyeballing the pics at the following link) may add another 7-9". So, you're looking at a tight fit even without the PF unit. (FWIW, the PF unit is not required, JD simply recommends it for best performance... and to pad their wallets.) I dunno how much this would impact your mowing goals, but I don't see any reason why the 42" deck from the X304 won't latch onto the X324 chassis. It might be worth calling a dealer to ask about that. With the 42", the PF unit is not necessary, and it doesn't bulge out to the side quite so much. You could esily step down to the whole X304 package without losing any real capability. About the only thing you'll miss (aside from the wider deck) is the slightly beefier tranny. But it would also save you quite a few bucks. Best of luck! Here is a link that might be useful: 48

I have a Craftsman 917.255810 42" 19 HP Briggs & Stratton Fast Auto TurnTight® Riding Mower equipped with a General Transmissions RS800 CVT (constant variable transmission). It was purchased on Black Friday, Nov 24, 2017. I also purchased the correct Craftsman 9 bushel, 3-bin bagger to fit the mower. I used the mower to 'get up' leaves 3 times in the fall of 2017. I stored the mower in a shed, out of the weather, until this spring. I have used the mower 2 times to mow my lawn. Basically to knock down the onions and dandelions. There was little or no 'real' grass to mow yet. My front yard has a slope that I run side to side on. The CVT started sticking, becoming difficult to change from forward to reverse and back, in the fall. In the Spring it became an issue to the point I contacted Sears Service and they sent out a service technician. He was a contractor for Sears and had enough work with Sears that he didn't do anything else. One of the common problems with this CVT is debris jamming the exterior workings, ie. Variator Levers, Inversion/Variation Control lever (forward/reverse), Drive Variator (variable pulley), etc. The Sears Tech said that my CVT was one of the cleanest he'd ever seen (I attribute this to the few times I had a chance to used it & blowing it off with a leaf blower.) and was not a debris problem or issue. The short of it was that the CVT was failing. The Tech said that the GT CVTRS800 was one of the main issue on most of the calls he was dealing with. He said that Sears & Kubota had gone away from it and were mainly using a hydrostatic transmission again. He did say that John Deere was using it in their new 'consumer grade' mowers sold at big box stores like Lowes & Home Depot. My options were to continue to call Sears Service for 2 years while the mower was still under warranty, then purchase a yearly Service Contract for about 1/2 the cost of replacing a CVT, or try to sell the mower and purchase something else. The Tech did say that he had worked on one CVT RS800 equipped mower that didn't have these issues. It was used on a yard that was about an acre or less and as flat as a 'golf course putting green'. The Tech is coming back in a few days to replace the CVT at no cost to me. The Tech said that the CVT was originally designed to drive the blades and wheels of snow throwers/blowers and it did fine at that. GT tried to repurpose it for Lawn tractors to less than mixed results. I guess I'll ride this horse for two years and then try to sell it to someone with a pool table flat lawn. I'm also with toefungus wondering if there will be a Class Action Lawsuit as a result.

the k58 is ok but is also found in lower end tractors along with the k46 and k60 I would not say they are junk but there are better ones such as the k71 found in the x500 but pulling just a aerator or something like that your dealer is right go across not up and down and you will be fine . also they are not serviceable by design but you can still service them they dont have a drain plug only a vent tube so the easiest way is to unbolt the hydro unit from the tractor and take the plug out of the vent tube then tip the hydro upside down so the vent tube is pointing straight down and let it sit that way till the oil all runs out then refill it with fresh oil by dumping it into the vent tube it takes a little while to get it refilled but if you use a funnel and run a small rubber hose into the funnel to act as a vent then pour the oil into the funnel with the hose in place it allows faster filling because the air has a way to escape as you are filling it up afterwards just bolt it back on and reconnect everything and if you have a little lever on the back that says bypass or release start the tractor with both rear wheels off the ground and pull the release lever which bleeds the air out of the system while the tractor is in drive after about 10 mins put the tractor back in neutral push the lever back in and take it for a drive