Parts shopping advice

Hey folks , Izzy here , I'm looking at some parts for a build and was curious if anyone had any prior experiences with a model #618-0163B rear axle . It is from a lowes 12.5 HP lawn tractor and it being of a lower HP engine I'm just wondering if I should keep it or send it out . Tia guys !

@RCG has some experience with those style rear ends I believe.

Those are just what we refer to as FNR transaxles, not wonderful for offroading. They go out pretty often even used as they’re intended. Just an all around weak transaxle. Though, some people have made them go pretty far. It seems like not long ago a fella on here put a straight axle in one. That would help the problems with them breaking in half.

When you build them right they're supposedly pretty tough,  something that I'll personally be finding out myself this coming summer.

Alot of the cases already have cutouts to run bearings on the axle(s) which adds alot of strength as does using through bolts and nuts to hold the case halves together wherever you can instead of the threaded bolts.

There's also what this fella did and is how I'm planning to build mine,  what I think is great about the sprockets and chain is that you can get a way lower ratio for more speed without overdriving the input and risk blowing the input shaft bearings.

RichieRichOverdrive wrote:

Those are just what we refer to as FNR transaxles, not wonderful for offroading. They go out pretty often even used as they’re intended. Just an all around weak transaxle. Though, some people have made them go pretty far. It seems like not long ago a fella on here put a straight axle in one. That would help the problems with them breaking in half.

I'll second that, the axles like to fall out while you are mowing grass. You can make them power shfit if you want, I have a varidrive pedal tractor, and when the shift keys get worn out you can just pop it between F and R while it's still rolling.