Craftsman GT 6000 Build

Just got back from picking up the big Magnum!





It's definitely complete! Appears to be in good shape too. Apparently when it was in the tractor it was taken to Campell's every year, which is a small engine place in my area, to be serviced. I also got the complete wiring harness and muffler with it!



Seems like I got a pretty good deal. Hoping to get 'er in the tractor and running soon!

That's awesome! Can't wait to hear her fired up!

Yeah, me either hahaha.

Also, Rich brought up a good point. I zoned out this was a kohler. Definate dual exhaust.

looks like a good purchase its an 18 or a 16 hp model ?

Yeah I thought so! Haha, she's an 18 horse.

If i could ever get my hands on one ......i don't know what i would put it on but it would be nice to have

Yeah haha, they are pretty cool engines for sure.

So I did a little digging tonight.



Took my blower shroud off just to take a look at things, could use the usual cleaning of the cooling fins. But I wiggled the starter gear assembly and it has a ton of side to side play. Whoops, the upper bushing is trashed.





You can see the gap. Kinda sucks but I decided to just swap the whole upper plate from the other starter onto this one, should be no problem.

Got the rest of the starter waiting to be put back together once I get the other bushing plate.



The inside of the starter body could really use a blowing out, so I'll do that before re-assembly.



Hopefully I can get the parts all swapped out and get the starter working again soon!

Its too bad the exhaust ports werent on the bottom of the cyl... that would make the dual exhaust you are going to run easier

Cool engine man.

Yeah I was thinking the same thing, haha. We'll see though, I have a couple ideas.

Looks good! Hate it when those top bushings get ate up. Those have been responsible for a few plastic starter gear failures...

Got the other bushing plate intalled!



There's no play now. I boosted it in the vise and is sounded much better than before. I also mounted it up to the engine and boosted it and it turned the engine over great! Should be good to go after I clean up the engine.

i hate plastic starter gears , all my oppys have them . its generally easyier to put a pull start on then fix them

Yeah I hate them as well, luckily this one has a steel gear and shaft.

I cleaned out the cooling fins on this engine while I had the blower shroud off. Goo thing too because there was a ton of gunk in there!

As you can see:



Then I put 'er all back together!



Might try and make it down to the farm tomorrow so I can swap engines. If so I'm probably just gonna wait until this engine's in the frame to try and start it, just seems easier.

On another note I got this sweet 20 gallon air compressor for my birthday!



Made blowing the engine out much easier than before with the little 1.5 gallon fella, haha.

Anyway hopefully I can get something done tomorrow and finally get the ol' GT 6000 running again!

nice compressor ! i still have not replaced my compressor since it died. those bad boys are pricy

Harbor freight makes a decent compressor. Especially when you factor in the cost. 160 bucks gets you a lot of compressor in there

Happy belated birthday!  It's nice to have a good compressor!

Edit: Somehow this post ended up in the TMAM thread? Had to move.

Yeah this ones a pretty sweet deal, 20 gallons is a big improvment over 1.5 haha. Also this one has more than the required CFM to run my pneumatic tools, where as the old one has to be run 2 or 3 times just to remove 6 wheels nuts hahaha.

I completely understand. Going from a 5gal to a 60gal myself this past year. It is super nice! You will like it a lot!

mightyraze wrote:

Happy belated birthday!  It's nice to have a good compressor!

Edit: Somehow this post ended up in the TMAM thread?  Had to move.

Thanks mighty! Is sure is haha. I saw your post in the other thread and figured there was some sort of craziness going on , hahaha.

Alright, now get a water separator, and a spray gun then you can paint the gt too!

I expect professional grade paint jobs from now on. No excuses.

Haha, I acually have a little air brush that you can use water-based paint in. It's what I used for some of the patina work on the fenders of the rat rod.

I am going to sell my dewalt wood planer in order to buy possibly a sears suburban , if not that then its a compressor .

Alright well I made some progress tonight! Might as well just let the pictures tell the story hahaha.











Only thing I had to change was this plug.



This engine has a low oil pressure switch so I had to take the plug from the wiring harness I got and put it on this tractor.



I wasn't able to get it to start, I can get it to fire if I spray carb cleaner down the throat of the carb so I figured it was the fuel pump. So I unhooked the line from the carb and cranked 'er over a few times and fuel was coming out just fine. That's good, so I'm just assuming that it's something in the float bowl. I'll take a look at that tomorrow sometime but for now she's in!







Hopefully it's just a matter of giving the carburetor a good cleaning tomorrow.