140 ENGINE TRANSPLANT; PICTURES AND THOUGHTS OF THE CONVERSION

Personally I love the simpleness of the Kohler single K-engines. You can rebuild the whole engine for under $200. ENGINE REBUILD KIT fits 14 hp Kohler, K321 and M14 FREE TUNE UP, same day ship! | eBay

My big question is, why do all that work to drop a twin cyl in that makes 18HP "modern days calculating" compared to a TRUE 14HP simple, single cyl engine?

I have a K341 16HP Kohler in my JD 300 The newer younger brother of the 140. That tractor runs a tiller with an attitude, and a plow on front for snow or dirt. I have NEVER had a problem in the power department.

There are a few sites that sell parts for the K engines. Kirk Engines, Inc. >> Garden Tractor Performance Parts iSaveTractors - Your Source for Kohler K Engine Parts and Vintage Garden Tractor Restoration Tips, Videos, Articles, and How To's

I say pull the engine and rebuild it. Keep things simple and original. I'm not a perfectionist so I don't care if you drop a twin in there. I just wonder why. That K321 will produce almost as much power as that newer 18hp twin.

Your steering can be fixed with roller washers on the bottom of the spindles for the front wheels. Not these in particular but you get the drift. put them in and it will steer much better. Robot or human?

My .02$

Before you go finding a machine shop I would pull the head and check the cylinder walls. In my experience I have not found a cylinder wall on a single K engine that I couldn't just hone and re-ring the piston. New crank seals are easy, pulling the piston easy, putting new rings in easy, You can find the torque specs for the bolts on line. They really are that simple. I could pull and rebuild a K engine in a day.
Tools you need.
Sockets and wrenches of course, torque wrench, ring compressor, 3 finger hone, feeler gauge for ring clearance, and I'm probably missing something.
But the thing is $200 for the rebuild kit and maybe $100 in tools compared to a $1500 bill at the machine shop. HHHMMMMM what to do what to do.
Plus you get the knowledge of knowing how to rebuild an engine and can say, "yep I rebuilt that engine"

That's the situation with my model 71 Cub Cadet that was my grandfather's. Needs a hone and rings. My dad had it for about 10 years and that's what he told me. The old boy was a mechanical whiz and an engine rebuilder in his early years. He also built engines for a Ford dealer with a drag racing team for a while. He didn't like it though. He said it pissed him off when somebody blew up a really good V8 by abusing the snot out of it. Then he was a Massey mechanic after he bought a farm that wasn't within driving distance of the engine shop where he worked, then a GM mechanic after he sold that farm and bought a better one and we moved too far away to keep working at the Massey dealership. He needed another gig and after we moved he drove to the closet town to get gas at the Supertest station that was also a GM dealership and came home with a job that paid double what the Massey shop paid. He went from $50 a week then $100 a week. Sounds like slave wages but that was in 1963. I still recall how happy he and my mum were about the extra income. So anyway.. if he said something about engines I automatically accepted it as fact. He was mistaken once in a while but he was right a heck of a lot more than he was wrong.

mopar65pa said:

In my experience I have not found a cylinder wall on a single K engine that I couldn't just hone and re-ring the piston.

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