The Vanguards are pretty good. I've worked on a bunch of abused Cubs in the last couple years and these things take a beating and keep running. I like them enough that I pulled a good running M12 Kohler out of my 1210 and replaced it with a 16HP Vanguard. Same setup as in the 1641. A couple years ago I bought a 1641 that the PO thought was siezed up, turned out the PTO was fried. Put a couple bearings in the PTO and used it all summer to mow my lawn and then sold it. It had 1200 hours on it and ran like a top.
