Having blown the connecting rod out the side of my 11HP garden tractor I decided that I'd undertake a motor swap. The noise associated with the rod leaving the block at speed was considerable. Luckily, a piece of garden furniture was the only casualty caused by the flying starter motor. The fact that I have little to no experience with infernal combustion engines should deter me from this repair, but the sensible approach seems to elude me lately.
An almost identical (used) motor in running condition has been found locally and brought home. I was told to drop the carburetor bowl, clean any gunk out, replace the pan gasket, drain & fill the oil, and make sure that mice hadn't made a nest in the head cooling fins under the shroud. Most of these tasks were completed this evening.
First, however, I undertook to remove the existing motor from the chassis. The remaining oil was drained (frankly, it seemed like a lot to me) and I managed to figure out where the bolt heads were underneath the frame to free the block. Somehow I kept my wits about me and didn't try to hacksaw the pulley assembly off the drive shaft when no visible means of attachment was evident. There was, in fact, a recessed bolt to remove the pulleys.
In the process of all this I determined that the motor in the tractor a) was not the original motor, and b) had a carburetor and throttle plate from the 12HP version from the same manufacturer. The replacement motor has a different throttle motion with integral choke actuation. With any luck the existing throttle cable will have sufficient range of motion to do the job.
The wee beastie sans propulsion unit:
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