john deere 216 questions

my brother has worn out his craftsman lt1000, and has decided not to bother with rebuilding it this time, but he has a line on a JD216 with a good running kohler engine, and i was wondering if anyone had any info on it, i know it's a factory 16hp engine, and has a 2300 and from what i can find it's a veri-drive, he's looking for something to replace his lt1000 which serves double duty as a general transportation/trail mower, would the 216 make a decent replacement for him or should he look for a different machine

Uh...they're not very good, I'll take it off yer hands though....

Just kidding, they're very good tractors. They're essentially my 110 with a bigger engine. There's more to them than that, but the 2300 is a very stout trans, and that engine is going to last a long time if maintained. It's not exactly a vari-drive, it's a variator. That's what John Deere officially called them. Effectively they're the same thing. I've been told by people who have both MTDs with vari drives and John Deere's with variators that in principle and design, they're the same thing, but the variators are much stouter. Everyone always complains about the vari drives slipping, however I've never had my John Deere's variator slip, and I've had it fully dunked underwater.

So yeah, I'd run it if I were him. I've actually been trying to get a 216 myself for a while, haha.

thanks for the info, i keep reading you have to use special belts for them, is that true or is there a cheaper alternative to the expensive jd belts i keep reading you have to use?

No, that's just a thing that John Deere wants you to think. I use regular old tractor supply belts, have had no issues. But I would suggest the kevlar kind, because with a variator, the contact is mostly on the sides of the belt, and not on the face of it, so I imagine it gets hotter.

Oh, and at least on mine, but I'm pretty sure on all JD variator models, the front belt is 1/2" and the rear belt is 5/8"s. If you don't have that right, the variator won't work right.

we run kevlar belts on all our machines so that's no issue, i didn't know about the sizes though, thanks, neither of us is familiar with these since the only jd we've owned was a newer 125 with a hydro and my little 82 rer, can we run the 2300 directly from the engine like on other brands that use the 2300 or is the jd setup so you must use the variator

I did a variable speed bypass on a 110 and it worked fine, but I had to rig up a clutch setup and what not. Pretty simple though, if you can do some basic fab work you could do the same thing.

You could also keep the variable speed if you want, it shouldn't give you too many issues.

basically i was just wondering in case of it needing replaced in the future, it would be far cheaper to run a belt directly than replace the variator, not that i suspect they go out very often, and it's my understanding it's usually the bearings that go bad not the drive itself,

Ah, yeah I suppose it depends. But I belive you're right there are needle bearings in there, and those would probably be the only thing that wears out other than the pulley sheaves themselves.

Anothing thing about variable speed setups is the center sheave can get stuck in place if the machine has sat un-used for a long period of time, in which case it just needs to be taken apart to be clean and lubricated.

we'll find out tomorrow if he's going to be able to get it or not, he's dealing with a guy who will sometimes give good deals other times he won't depending on his mood, he's hoping to do a trade, he recently was given an electric black n decker push mower, edger and shrub trimmer, as well as a snow blower and 2 stroke mini tiller for some work he did and he's hoping to trade those and another rider we have for the jd, he would use the other mower he wants to trade, but it's a newer mtd made troy bilt or something like that with the dash controlled vari drive and fnr transaxle, and we don't feel it would handle the abuse he puts his mowers through

well he got the jd as well as a newer troy bilt that needs an engine, previous owner ran it out of oil and locked it up, what he traded, the electric yard set, mower, shrub trimmer, and edger, an old murray 38/11, the older troy bilt that we just put together that has a rotten deck, and 2 old mtd decks that we no longer have the mowers for

Good deal! Be sure to post some pictures of the ol' girl!

I kept the var speed on my 110 pulley clean up fine and function like it should I have a good mower deck with all the hardware if someone needs I'll make them a deal

@AllisKidD21 it was a great deal, he has a total of $75 in the stuff he traded over, and a few hrs of his time, the mower i thought was a troy bilt, the one we had that he traded, but was a yard man, he traded it for a troy bilt, basically the same mower just a newer model, we haven't picked up the jd yet, we plan to pick it up tomorrow and i'll be sure to get some pics of it

darkside0914 wrote:

thanks for the info, i keep reading you have to use special belts for them, is that true or is there a cheaper alternative to the expensive jd belts i keep reading you have to use?

I would make that determination after getting the specs on the belt, on my 210 it actually uses a belt that 67 1/4", 5/8"wide, so a 67" blue belt is too small/tight, and a 68" is way too loose. So I spent 40 dollars on belts before buying a belt from the GreenPartsStore.

the engine belt looks brand new, looks like the old belt broke and they didn't know how to put the new one on, but here's pics, we just got it home, it's a bit rough, bad attempt at a repaint and some rust in the right floor board, rear tires have some dry rot, but the engine runs good

Cool find.

we think the fuel pump might be bad, or the filters clogged, it takes it alot of cranking to start and when it does you can't run it at full throttle for long because it seems to run out of gas and dies, then with more cranking and choke it will start again, doesn't seem to have any trouble at low idle, there's a few other issues we're having too, i don't think it's anything serious, just problems that occur when an old tractor sits for a few yrs

Looks like a mice old machine! I imagine with a little bit of minor tinkering that old K341 will run as good as anything.

the variator is froze up, the center piece not the whole thing fortunately, also the spring is gone from the tensioner pulley going to the belt on the transaxle, and the right front tire is shot, the exhaust was just stuck on it, nothings holding the pipe to the pipe coming off the engine, nothing we can't fix, in the mean time we are going to get my grey murray, non wide body millennial edition, up and running for him to ride until we get the 216 going,

question, does the belt going to the transaxle go over the tensioner pulley or under it, it seems to have a huge amount of slack if i run it under the tensioner pulley, we took the rear body section off today and pulled the gas tank, it's plastic so why was rusty red crap coming out of it? anyway we think we found our issue with the hard starting and why it was running bad at high idle, the gas in it was foul smelling and obviously bad, we will run the fuel line into a fresh tank of gas tomorrow to be sure though, there's still the matter of pulling the variator and getting it unstuck too, but i think this is a good time to sand and paint the fenders while we have them off, my brother wants to do it in olive drab instead of john deere green since that's the only shade of green he actually likes

well i guess i'm not going to be working on the john deere, my brother just sold it

Aw man, that's a bummer. Gotta say I really didn't expect that, haha.

yeah me neither, he got $150, doubled what he had in it, and an older shaft drive snapper with a 16hp horizontal shaft briggs oppey, there's something going on with the high low shifter, it doesn't feel like it's connected he said, i haven't seen it yet myself and won't until we take the jd to the guy he sold it to and pick up the snapper

well we got the snapper and the other guy got the jd, he plans to fully restore it, here's pics of the snapper lt16 my brother traded for




now all i need to do is figure out how to adjust this drive system, it currently has no reverse and 1st is where nuetral is supposed to be, this oppey runs amazing, wouldn't believe it's been sitting for 5 yrs under a tarp in a car port

Cool Snapper! It looks like it has the 6-speed with dual ranges, I always thought that was pretty neat, I don't much about those friction drive setups though.

Nice horizontal Briggs too!