I bought a used John Deere LX120 that comes equipped with a TuffTorq K46 model hydrostatic transmission. These trannies have a history of low longevity. They kind of grenade at somewhere between 200 and 500 hours and the symptoms are low torque on flat/slightly sloped ground and failure to climb hills. My L120 at 180 hours is exhibiting this condition right now. I didn't know about this when the dude sold it to me, and it runs great -- for about 25-30 minutes. Long enough for a demo ride. (Sigh.)
The fixes I've seen range from a complete trans upgrade to their K66 model (a $1500 upgrade) to a replacement K46 (about $600/800 depending on where you find it) and I just found today a technique to rebuild the trans for about $200 in parts and 4-5 hours of your labor.
I was wondering if Auto-Rx had ever been used even as a palliative measure. I'm at the beginning of the mowing season. If I can use Auto-Rx to get another 50 hours of operation out of the tractor I can rebuild it during the winter months.
Any thoughts?
BTW, it is a sealed unit so a teardown would be required in any case to do anything related to changing out fluid or filters. That's the one thing that recommends a K66 (which has replaceable filter units and an oil drain plug) but I don't feel like spending $1500 - that's twice what I paid for the tractor itself.
-- Edited by Frank on Saturday 25th of May 2019 12:45:44 PM
Yeah, it's belt driven. Rebuilds of the K46 (and the transmission vendor as well) have counseled a switch to a synthetic from the 10w30 that comes as OEM.
I'm continuing to lurk on a tractor forum to get more details.
