Which Engine to rebuild?

[finsruskw]

Maybe consider Dave Kirk's balance plate for the 1650 engine.

I did the 341 for my 1650 last year and it runs pretty smooth.
Hung the tiller on it for this year gardens and works good.

[dodge trucker]

hafta remember that.

[twoton]

Originally Posted by finsruskw

Maybe consider Dave Kirk's balance plate for the 1650 engine.

I did the 341 for my 1650 last year and it runs pretty smooth.
Hung the tiller on it for this year gardens and works good.

Have you used Kirk's balance plates?

[ol'George]

I thunk dey wuz fer when yall remove the balance gears.
thinking cub 1650's didn't come with balance gears, mine didn't.
I would think a good pro balance job might help these big thumpers.
Not a fan of hanging a weight on the crank @ random.
Built a few balanced SBC's back in the day, utilizing a reputable balance shop in
Deetroit
they lived and ran good.

[dodge trucker]

never had a Cub spec K341 apart, but have had a few other K341s apart that DID have balance gears in them.

as far as which engine, in my area for some reason narrow base Kohlers are as rare as hens teeth, usually have to buy a tractor to get one, because youre gonna pay as much or more for just an engine.
That said, I have a 129 here with no engine, and 4 wide base versions. That aint no good for getting the 129 back mobile again. I happened across a K241 out of an older Cub than this 129, and unless I can either trade someone a wide base engine or come up with "all kinds of extra time on my hands" so I can mock up and modify this tractor for a magnum (which I also have here) I guess that for this particular 129, it's gonna have to become a 109.


Also I have 3 Ariens S/ GT series tractors here (one of which has a before mentioned, K341 that used to have balance gears) and 1, 1972 New Holland S 14/ same exact machine as the Ariens that I have. (Ariens bought the line of tractors from Sperry/NH in about 1974ish and painted them orange, the rest is history)
The NH was of course built as a 14hp. That 14hp came to me as a basket case. I had an M12 on the shelf that had been rebuilt and hadn't yet had gas or oil put thru it since the overhaul. Since the NH came to me as a roller, I put that freshly gone thru M12 in it for the time being. 3 years later I have gone thru the original K321, and even though this NH runs circles around my buddy's Cub 1250 with essentially same sized deck, (I know, comparing a tired K301 vs a fresh one isn't fair) the "2 hp-itis" has kicked in, and since I now have the original 14hp ready to plop back into place, it's going back on there.
Now, if my spare engine had been another 14 or even a 16hp, I wouldn't have been worried about that original engine.... I ain't putting the original engine back on for "numbers matching" reasons, like these guys that restore "rare" musclecars would, but even if that same machine was built with that smaller sized variant of the same engine, I don't much care for putting it back together with an engine with less HP than it originally came with, either.

In the case of my other Cub, I gotta run what is available, at least for now.
If I find a 12 or 14 for it, then my son's 73 will probably become a 103.

I may not have the same thought process as some, but that's what makes sense to me.

and no, this 129 ain't the machine that I have a thread going on here about elsewhere, it's a 2nd machine that's collecting dust.

[twoton]

Originally Posted by ol'George

.....I would think a good pro balance job might help these big thumpers......

I would agree with that being the best route... and I don't know how Kirk's plates would help and only know of one person, member Old Skull, who has used the kit.

[apex944]

Guys I appreciate all the wisdom here. This gives me a few different options. One way or another I'll keep these old tractors running.