Troy built tiller

wfw

Member
I have acquired a troybuilt horse tiller, price was right. it has a predator engine on it from harbor freight that had ethanol gas in it and ruined the engine. has rust in gas tank etc. I have a five horse honda engine on the remains of a power washer. it did run great but has sat for three years now. if it will crank and run will it power the horse? other alternative is to replace with another predator engine. thank for the advice.

frank
 
I have a 6.5 Briggs motor on my horse. It is a 206 cc engine - that used to be the designation for the five horse engine when they were L heads. Mine really works hard if I till at maximum depth in our black dirt. Try it. What do you have to lose?
 
My Troy built has a 8 hp Koler on it and back when if was new it had a 7hp teucmusi (sp) on but my dad flat wore out the fist engine. He got it in 1972 and I still use it every year to till my garden. As for will that engine be big enough hard to say it will depend on the soil type you have
 

If you're blaming the ethanol for the rust in the tank, think again. Ethanol cleans out stuff like that. It doesn't cause it.
 
I bought a new one around 1987, a Horse model with 8hp Kohler Magnum. Can't complain one bit yet. Did custom work for the first 10 years. But only on the second set on tines, a couple tine seals. Magnum engine has a lift pump for fuel. Maybe a 10 hp is you need a little more power.
 
(quoted from post at 17:32:12 07/29/16) I have a 6.5 Briggs motor on my horse. It is a 206 cc engine - that used to be the designation for the five horse engine when they were L heads. Mine really works hard if I till at maximum depth in our black dirt. Try it. What do you have to lose?

Same here. I believe mine is a 1979 model that was my Father-in-laws. I replaced the engine four years ago with a 6.5Hp Briggs & Stratton and replaced the worm gear (which was not cheap). Other than a belt and sharpening the tines it soldiers on. Still churning up rocks! I really should replace the tines . . . once I get the soil cleared of the ever re-breeding rocks.
 
You have a few options for re-powering, my preference for one of these is a K series Kohler, easy to start, maintain and get parts for. Theres a link to e-bay for K-161T listings. Performance wise, its got the right torque the 161T, you want to run lower throttle due to soil conditions, the 161T works perfectly, it was a good match in my opinion, all the way around.
Small Engine Warehouse

Kohler 161T
 
Ijjust sold my older sister's HORSE. She is a recent widow, now. The $$$$ will help with the property taxes next year.

A young couple, with son, stopped in and promised me a "job" at their orchard complex in the FINGER LAKES, NY. area.

We have arranged to deliver the HORSE as soon as our fruit season is over, here.

Seems that the new owners have a construction projet at their orchard complex.

I am in a position to spend 3 months at their place and with the family. 5 generations on the same farm land, there.

Selling price was $1,200.00. Just goes to show quality invites "QUALITY".

John,PA
 

Lighter soil you should be okay - mine had a 7 HP and had plenty of power for me. For busting sod - 5 HP is going to be a litttle short on power.

Some things to consider are: 1) the engine has to fit the tiller mounting bracket, 2) the drive pulley has to fit the engine shaft, and 3) you need to shim the tiller drive pulley to align the drive belts/reverse disk. The manual simply says, add spacers as required. I came upon my Horse because the PO could not figure out how to shim it - I added approximately 1/4" of machinery bushings to to get it aligned so reverse would work.
 
Ethanol would rather disolve in water than gas. It gets the water right out of the atmosphere when it has enough it separates from the gasoline. And its the water that makes the rust.
 
(quoted from post at 19:36:03 07/29/16) Ethanol would rather disolve in water than gas. It gets the water right out of the atmosphere when it has enough it separates from the gasoline. And its the water that makes the rust.

We used to pour a can or two of "HEET" into the gas tanks in the winter to take the water out. HEET is alcohol. Ethanol is alcohol. No need for HEET since the introduction of ethanol.
 
If the Honda will bolt up and mount properly give it a try. Engines are very easy to swap on a Horse. It will probably depend on the soil type and also on what you use your tiller for. (i.e. cultivating, preparing worked soil for seeding, breaking up sod, etc)

I have a Horse I and a Horse II. Both great machines. One has a 8 hp on it, but the other has a much smaller replacement engine I stole off a little tiller. Both have enough power to do all I want.

Even the one with the smaller engine (which, by the way, works great even tilling up sod) the belts tend to be the limiting factor rather than engine power. Yes, yes, someone will jump in about different belts or making them tighter, or whatever. But it works for me, and it seems I'd rather have that as the point of give than something else. The relevant point here is that even my littlest engine (I think about 6 hp if memory serves) works fine and is not maxed out.

My soil, though, is lighter than some. Your experience may be different.
 
I installed a 10 hp B&S on my Horse model. I sold the 6hp Tecumseh for $65.00. I have a picture somewhere.Hal
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Never had trouble with ethanol in any engine large or small. This would include Stihl, Kohler, Onan, B&S and Generac small engines, cars, pick ups, and old Ford gasoline semi tractor and a couple of smaller farm tractors which burn gasoline. Some of this equipment may set up to 6 months at a time before it's used again. No snake oils either.
 
finished with the repowering. the crankshaft is shorter than the original engine. does anyone know how long the original engine crankshaft was? reverse does not work but everything else does. this one works so much better than my superbronco tiller! I made three passes in part of the garden. it has not been worked since 2012. it did really good. found out also this one was built in 1973( date on casting). The only problem I had was with the belt pulley. I could not get it to go back on. I had a machine shop to look at it and he said it needed to be reamed out to retrue it. It came off the old predator engine fine but would not go back on the new one. Thanks for the responses!
 

If memory serves me correct, the crankshaft on my Horse with the original 7 HP Tecumseh was 1/2" to 3/4" shorter than the engine drive pulley. I have attached two pictures: The first picture shows the shims (machinery bushings) I added behind the pulley to to align the reverser disc with the driven pulley on the tiller transmission. The second picture shows the reverser disc, held in place with three countersunk screws. Note, the end of the crankshaft is visible inside the drive pulley. The drive pulley is held in place by a bolt threaded into the crankshaft which holds the pulley tight up against shims. The reverser disc needs to engage with the mating groove on the driven pulley for the reverse to work properly. The length of the crankshaft is not that important - the shimming for alignment is critical. My reverse did not work until I added the shims - to get everything lined up.

Note: I believe the newer models had a flat reverser disc and only one drive belt. I am not sure which type you have sorry if I missed it in your posts.
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so clean tank and start it up ethanol has not hurt that engine. its in every item in out of shop hear no issues. throwing away good engine looks to me like
 
My tines seem to wear easily until a welder told me to pull the tines and said he would use hard facing welding rods. Made a big difference.
Hal
 

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