Rather off the subject from my 48 8N, but I just recently retired my old 214 JD with a 318 JD. I took a chance and purchsed this mower and the machine looks real good with a almost excellent 50 inch deck and had all the features that I was wanting like power steering, hydrostat and a pressurized oiling system with a filter. It ran very well and did not knock or smoke I THOUGHT, after about 15 minutes you almost couldn't see the machine because of the oil smoke. Well I decided to tear into it and found worn rings and somewhat worn pistons. I have always been told that the Onan engines were suppose to be long lasting engine this one had 711 hours on it. I also found out that the previous owner was not very faithful on preventive maintence, explains the need of an major overhaul. Well this is my first and probably my last Onan made engine they are very very expensive to rebuild. Pistons .010" over were $114.00 a piece and .010 under rods were 55 bucks a piece. Am I just a fool and have sucker all over my face or is Onan proud of their parts? Oh by the way my local John Deere dealer was the cheapest on the parts I called everyone who uses the Onan engines in their products. Now here my 52 year old 8N just keeps going and going, should have just put a belly mower on the underneath of it and been done with it, lol. All said and done the final price for the John Deere 318 with complelty rebiult engine and all machine work I will have about $2300 in it. I guess that's not too bad but sure was dissapointed in that Onan engine. John
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