My only intention in my posting is to maybe help the next person along in their search of a lawn tractor or learn a bit about them for myself. Whether it be green, orange, blue, red or black. I don't think anyone disagrees with the fact that quality is not what it used to be, even with the advancements in technology. I wish, like most other americans out there, that we still manufactured everything here in the states. But that is a long distant memory and will probably never be again. But I bought a John Deere because the one I had before it lasted, and the farm I grew up on had plently of them that did their share of breaking, but got the job done everytime. But so did the Case, Internationals, Massey's, and I think a New Holland. Every manufacturer out there has it's share of problems. Nothings perfect! John Deere has been in my blood since childhood when I played with my first little green toy. Everytime I get on my X530, I will be proud to have one. People don't usually buy Harley Davidsons because of their quality (although I feel them to be very well built). They buy them because of the name that sits on them. If John Deere stops making a good product, the brand would eventually suffer and only be found in the history books and a few landscapes maybe. But when I drive anywhere, it is still the brand I see most often, and usually they are moving. So, drafted 72, your opinion is noted and hopefully a few people may benefit from your experience, but a GT235 and a X530 are a bit far apart in the ways they are used. I have no doubts that mine will still be alive and well in 15 years. And if I have any problems, I will be sure to post them, so the next person at least can use the info to decide if the JD brand is right for them.

You may have just entered the twilight zone. Questions: *How could left bank be this far out on valve adjustment, and right side be OK, unless it was built this way to begin with? (You did not state whether the "out of spec" valve adjustments were "too little clearance" or "too much clearance", but due to the ingestion of abrasives being part of the story, I'm figuring "too little clearance".) > With no IPL to view, and with Deere & Kaw in the bedroom with the door locked, it's hard to guess just how this FD671D engine is configured on YOUR Deere! But there are some "possible" conditions that "might" produce a condition of excess valve clearance on one cylinder and not the other......and it has NOTHING TO DO with the initial, factory adjustment. And you should read carefully here, it could have some significance in regard to whether this engine should even be repaired, whether you and Deere split the costs, or Deere pays all, or you pay all. Here Goes! If this engine has either of the following induction system types: (1) Two-barrel carburetor with separate plenums from carb inlet to the intake valves. (2) EFI with twin throttle body injectors and separate plenums from TB inlet to the intake valves. Either of those could result in one cylinder receiving the lion's share of airborne dirt that was entering "down stream" from the air filter. This would have caused the intake valve of one cylinder to be fed MORE abrasives than the other cylinder. This grit wears away the faces of the valves and their mating surfaces on the valve seats, resulting in the valves "sinking deeper" into the head, and the neccessary valve lash disappears. The intake valve suffers more than the exhaust valve because of the inherent stickiness of the intake valve surfaces, the exhaust valve surfaces are "blistering hot' and so less of the abrasives get "caught" between valve and seat. But the problem goes way beyond just the valves. The piston and rings get slammed too (and ultimately, the entire engine). And the piston feature two distinct types of rings. They are the compression rings, and the oil control rings. Piston compression rings are not "just sitting there" with a nice tight fit to the cylinder walls constantly. Piston rings are flexible (and must be free to move) and actually inflate when the piston moves upward to compress the air/fuel charge in the cylinder. The compression rings are pushed to the bottom of the ring groove where a "contact pressure seal" is formed between the ring and the bottom of the ring groove. With the seal established there, the compression pressure builds against the piston ring "inside diameter" surfaces causing the ring to expand and make contact with the cylinder walls. When this occurs, the rings are fully inflated, and the maximum affordable seal has been established. The topmost compression ring (sometimes a.k.a. "fire deck ring") inflates the most and therefore is the ring that wears the most. The second groove compression ring inflates less because it basically inflates using only the "blow by" pressure that escapes past the top ring. Dirt and grit gets blown into the rings and grooves and immediately begins to compromise sealing of the surfaces against one another. This leads to a steady buildup of dirt and eroded metal in the grooves. Not all of this material stays in the grooves. Because of blow by pressure, the dirt and metal is transported downward until it reaches the oil control rings. The oil control rings do not inflate by compression but instead are held tightly against the cylinder walls by an expander/spacer "spring". The edges of the oil control rings are rather sharp and squared off and essentially act as "squeegees" to scrape excess oil downward, and keep the vital oil film from migrating upward into the combustion chamber. The abrasives will soon wear away material from ALL of the piston rings, and the ring grooves, and the piston skirt (which, by the way, is THE ONLY INTENDED part of the PISTON touching the cylinder walls) and of course, the cylinder walls themselves. This produces a rather steady "rain" of junk into the engine crankcase, right into the lube oil. And, if all that wear resulting from direct exposure of the engine surfaces was not enough!!!, there's more. As time goes by, the air filter begins to collect dirt and as a result, is less able to pass air through the filter media, restricting the air flow to a lower volume. But.....the restricted air filter just means that more air volume will be drawn through the breach in the filter system, along with more grit. As the wear in the cylinder worsens, all the abrasives have a much larger and easier path to the engine crankcase. Very soon, the lube oil filter will have collected and trapped enough of this material to reach its "capacity" and the bypass valve in the filter will unseat, permitting unfiltered oil to be fed to all parts of the engine. The concept of a bypass valve in a full flow lube oil system is based on the idea that "dirty oil is better than no oil". That could be true, but only if the bypass condition was temporary. How would you KNOW if the filter was in bypass mode? You wouldn't! The oil filter on this engine was almost certainly bypassing unfiltered oil, and abrasive material. These small oil filters have just a very small capacity for catching solid particles under NORMAL conditions. They are actually only intended to screen out the occasional piece of grit or carbon that makes its way back to the oil pump inlet. The volume of solid material getting into an engine through a breach in the air filter system is several times greater than what the capacity of the oil filter amounts to. *? Any advice on how to handle this? I would not personally feel comfortable with accepting this engine if repaired, and I mean no matter who foots the bill. For all the reasons I cited above, this engine can not be returned to a satisfactory state in regard to all the wear that takes place when an engine is operated with a constant diet of dirt and grit. My position is that the entire engine has sustained premature and excessive wear to ALL internal parts that come in contact with the dirty induction air stream or the resultant contaminated lube oil, and that means NO engine parts have escaped the abrasion and wear. Nothing less than a complete engine would be acceptable for me. How you handle it is up to you and your own convictions. I think it is significant to your case that the comment was made by the shop personell that it "doesn't look like it has ever been sealed". Whether they are willing to admit having made that statement, remains to be seen. Situations like this almost never get resolved to the full satisfaction of the consumer because there are usually too many technical concepts to get across to a judge and jury for your case to be realistically argued. Plus the fact of "Burden of proof". How would one ever PROVE that they themselves did not take that air filter loose on the first day they had the machine because they wanted to see everything?? As outlandish as that comment may sound here, it would certainly be brought up in court by any defense lawyer. Good luck in your pursuit of a settlement but unless Deere or Kaw are feeling "charitable", I think they will just offer you minimal consideration, or none at all.

In this case the elect. fuel shut-off solenoid (item 1) in in place of and older design carb. that just has a bolt to hold the float bowl on. Just remove the wire and using a wrench on the hex portion of the solenoid. This solenoid will click and open when you turn the key to the on position moving the plunger that mowie talked about to let fuel into the carb. you can test this by simply removing it ground it out against the carb. (with the power wire connected)(or you can use a battery charger with the + connected to the elect. hook-up and the - grounded against the body of the solonoid) and turn the switch to the on position. you should see the plunger actuate out when power is supplied (12V) and retract when power (12Vs is removed) Other than that spraying the passages and seeing if float works is the same as older design carb. remember their will be two gaskets when you remove the float bowl, 1 on the solenoid to seal it against the carb. bowl(usually a crush type gasket that can be reused if it didn't get torn up during removal, 2 o-ring at the top of the fuel bowl which usually sticks to the carb. housing and can be reused if it didn't get damaged during removal. you want the o-ring on the carb. housing for installation and not on the bowl cause the bowl slips over the o-ring and will most likely get pinched if put inside the bowl when installing or have it on the carb. housing to alow the bowl to slip over the o-ring for a good seal job, but you still have to look and see if it's pinched out while tighen the solenoid. as with all o-ring installations you need some type of lubricant to ensure you don't pinch the o-ring when installing it, most use small amount of vasoline jelly. If you have pinched it fuel will leak when the float fills the bowl up. To prevent pinching of the o-ring install the bowl and hold it up against the carb while screwing the solenoid on hand tight, now look around the bowl where it meets the carb housing for the o-ring sticking out, if you don't see no protrusion the tighten the solenoid using a wrench on the hex part of the solenoid. Tighten as tight as it was coming off trying not to over tighten it so you don't smash the crush gasket on the solenoid creating leak. most people with general knowledge and do this, if you have fuel leak try to see if the fuel is coming from the bottom or the top of the fuel bowl? remove the bowl inspect the gaskets and try to reseal it again, if it still leaks then you will have to take it to a mechanic which IMO will cost you no more that taking in as long as you didn't lose or damage parts during the trial maintenance repair. kinda of long sorry.

I have a L130 - similar - same front axle. My axle (mowing 2 acres country plot, snow blowing with 48" blower) has snapped 2 times. I tried nickle rods to weld it first time, but at about 50 bucks it was too much work to do and did not hold. I just ordered the 2nd axle, but will probably make my own axle soon from square tube steel. Should not be too hard to do, and probably will cut off the spindles and weld them into the tube. The rest is just drilling. Might line the pivot hole with another steel tube too. Anyway, the cast iron used is pretty close to pot metal, and is about as cheap as it comes. I think Deere only makes the axle and the dealers actually claim their Cast Iron axles are stronger than average lawn tractors. Ha ha ha. My old Sears and Murray had tube steel axles which never had a problem in years of use at the same property. I wont bother talking about eh TuffTorq tranny - another too little and too light thing deere did to make more money on this tractor. This shows what kind of management Deere has, and personally I would never buy another deere. I sure dont want to put 10,000$ into a green lawn mower just because its supposed to be good. For 10k$ I could have a machine shop make me one that is actually good. Sorry about my rant, but this lawn tractor has to go.