1999 John Deere LT160 "Green"

Earlier this year in the spring my cousin gave to me his mother-in-law's LT160 with a deck where the spindle hit something and ripped the rusted sheet metal right from the deck and motor that hadn't ran in years and was almost seized up.  After turning the motor over with a ratchet handle and adding gas to the tank, it started up and ran great without a carb cleaning for once.  Although a hydro isn't anyone's first choice for a mud tractor, the tractor I thought was pretty well made with a strong front end, plated hardware, a factory double pulley clutch, factory steering stops on the spindles, effortless steering, a 16hp kohler motor and plenty of space around the factory 20" tires for bigger ones.  So I removed anything to do with the mower deck and went as far as to cut the part of the casting off the front axle that pulls the factory mower deck to gain ground clearance.  

My plan for this tractor ultimately is to be a mud tractor with a utility twist on it. I have future plans to build a front bumper with a 2" reciever and a custom hood that is also like an ATV rear rack turned 90 degrees to hold tools and materials for working on jobs at properties that I work on.

To get started I wanted to build a rear 2" receiver.  I had a 2" ATV receiver that I used to have on my Wheelhorse C-125.  I mounted it on the inferior factory hitch and realized I could re-purpose the now useless bagger bracket to weld to the reciever and bolt to the tractor's frame to make a very strong point to tow from.  I like the idea of using a reciever because it gives me the potential to switch between attachments like drawbars, five gallon bucket mount or winch.

In the town where I live I can get parts powder coated pretty cheap, so I sent my factory rims and rear receiver off to get rid of that yellow color.

When I received the rims back I mounted 22x12-8 Kenda K299 Bear Claws on the rear and 15x5-6 Carlisle Xtracs on the front.  This was one of the worst tire mounting struggles of my life.  My front rims were too wide and my rear rims were too narrow. So I pinched a front tube mounting the tire and had to do it again.  I also had to enlist my dad's help so I could stand on the sidewall of the rear tire while he worked the tire spoons.

I absolutely love these tires on this machine.  The great factory steering coupled with an open diff makes for amazing handling and manuvearability.  This tractor has gotten stuck only twice to date which really shows what a good investment the bear claws were.

I threw on a set of $15 LED lights from ebay.  They are very bright and make riding at night a blast.

I had to get rid of those yellow caps for the axles so I sourced black ones to match the rims.

I removed the factory engine pulley and put on a slightly larger engine pulley to gain a little more speed.  However, I have changed the oil in the hydro unit to full synthetic and it gets hot pretty quickly.  After one particularly long night of trail riding there was a lot of oil of the transaxle the next day that came out the vent the night before.

I did change the oil in that old engine and put on a brand new belt.

This is the only hydro I've ever had and yes I miss the dependability of gears, but you can just turn the key and drive this tractor one handed.  It's so easy to drive my four year old nephew drove it! This tractor was a hit at a memorial day party and a fourth of July party.  I was challenged to a drag race by a guy with a stock toro riding mower and I totally smoked him.  I've had great times driving this tractor through mud holes, up a switchback logging trail up to 2,200 ft elevation, romping around my yard, and moving trailers with ease with ease.




















That's one of my best friends riding my tractor.

I'm looking for anyone with experience with the tufftorque hydro unit that these john deeres come with.  I'm currently thinking that I need to put on a factory size engine pulley to keep the temperature down.

Also I think this Kohler needs a valve adjustment. Every other time I start it the starter can't turn it past the compression stroke, and when I shut the motor off I hear a funny tink that I think is coming from the top end.  I'm looking for advice on that.

Well for starters, that is actually a LT166. I had a 133 and hated it. Had a foote 5 speed and a 13 horse kohler. Then there was a 155 in the same series that had a hydro and 15 horse briggs, then your 166. Not much difference that I am aware of other than the 133 is gear while the 155 and 166 are hydro, and engine size. Probably had a different hood on it when you got it since those bumper/hinges are known for breaking.
Good start on it though! A junkyard run for a gear driven transaxle would be a worthwhile investment

My Bad on the model number.  I never bothered taking the hood for this tractor because the plastic hinges were destroyed.  I also have a lot of pictures of model/serial number plates on my phone and got the model LT160 number tag for this tractor mixed up with my coworkers LT133 tag that I've worked on before.  Here's the correct model identification tag for my tractor



That aside,  I definitely need to keep eye out for a geared transaxle for this tractor.  It would make a awesome future upgrade.

Sounds like it does need the valves adjusted and that it has too much compression when you try to turn it over. I'm not sure if those engines has the compression release or not to help with starting it but I had a Kohler motor where it would do exactly what you're saying and the compression release was broken off. I'd also check to see if your engine turns over then hits the compression stroke, kind of slows down the spins fast the second half. If it's doing that I'd look at the starter making sure it's good and has a good connection and that your battery is good. (sorry for the long comment)

TN_Murray no need to apologize for the long comment because if you haven't noticed from my posts I love talking about tractors and I'm very passionate about them. I wish I knew about ATLTF years ago and wish I joined sooner.

This tractor has about 550 hours on it. The battery right now is brand new in it because I robbed the almost year old battery to put in my C-81 and put a new one in this.

Last night it turned over great when my girlfriend took it for a ride.

It's definitely on my winter project list to pull the valve cover off, inspect things and double check the starter connections as you suggest.

If you have any more questions about it feel free to ask I'm not an expert but I try to answer most any bodys questions if I have the proper knowledge in it. Definitely a great base to build a monster of a mower out of

The ladies like this tractor so I better get workin on it.

Everyone loves mud once they get muddy!

Finally got some work done on this tractor.  I picked up the hood for it this morning, set it on there, and I think it looks great.  I want to get it mounted up soon, but it doesn’t fit up with the JD dash at all.  I could use some ideas for what to do about that.  I’m almost done with the custom front bumper. I’m welding a small hitch on the front of it.

I’ve changed the front pulley back to the stock one but I cut off the deck drive pulley which I’m going to use for Ol’ Red’s engine pulley.



I’m going to mount the LED lights I have in the grill where the factory headlights are.

Looks nice Carl! Gonna paint it up or leave it? I'd say maybe make a custom dash outta steel, it'd be more durable and you could make it to fit the hood.

Looks great! Old hood swaps are always good for new tractors. Definitely make a new dash. I like the bumper. I see that the hood pivots at the top of the grille, that should give you more ease with building the bumper, prerunner type deal with a winch maybe?

Maybe some kind of adapter of sorts to adapt your existing dash to the old hood! Your options are pretty endless. Depends on how much or how complex you want to make it. As you can see in my current avitar, I also love old hoods on newer mowers. I have a 98 Murray Widebody with an 85 Murray GT hood!

Hey I know that hood! That’s an mtd, my buddy has one that’s from the same stamp

AllisKidD21,

I'm definitely going to paint the bumper.  I'm in the mock-up stage right now.  I'm going to paint the bumper and hood green.  I'm thinkng about scrapping the plastic dash and building an all metal one.  I'm just having a tough time visualizing what I should do.

RichieRichOverdrive,

Yes, this hood is perfect for the build.  I like the design where the grille is stationary.  I'm leaving the bumper basically like it is, but I'm adding a hitch which I can use for a shackle for pulling or ball for moving trailers around.  There might be more future bumper mods because I did leave room for a winch, 2" receiver, pre-runner bar, or some kind of grille /engine protection.

mightyraze,

I looked through every page of your Li'l Red Murray build and when you put that hood on there it really made your tractor look special.

CraftsmanQuad19,

These hoods are common.  A friend and I had MTDs with that same hood style too.

Dis some tandem sledding behind “The Green Machine”

I’m calling this the finished bumper (for now). I just have to paint and mount it.

Looks pretty beefy Carl! Should be nice.

I think it'll do nice! Do I see a love note on there?

Does look pretty beefy! I also see the

Has anyone ever re-wired any kind of JD lawn mower like this with a Kohler on it?

I can handle re-wiring the ignition, solenioid, and lights, but I'm not sure how to rewire the charging circuit because there are more than 3 wires going to the rectifier. Maybe the factory lights ran off of A/C?

Yeah i have twice, one with a rectifier , one without. not very hard if i remember right, or i did it wrong lol. it takes three wire and puts it into two right? there is two power wires and a kill wire . i just found out which was coil kill wire ( white on mine) and ran a switch to it , and for the power wire i ran it to pos post on solenoid . Thats all i remember from that engine. The older commands don't have a rectifier .

Tested out the new bumper and tow strap from ebay today.  Both worked great and I still love the way The Green Machine handles.  John Deere makes a nice chassis.

so I recently came across a parts craftsman tractor with a working MST 206 and this...

I must say I like it a lot more than the MTD hood.  What do you guys think?

Oooh, loving the look! Keep it for sure!

I think the mtd hood looked cooler but didn’t quite fit the shape of the fenders, ya know?

Definitely not a fan of those DLTs though