Repower 1816 skid steer

tjiniowa

Member
I have one with the 2 cylinder onan, that is giving me a lot of trouble, onan parts are hard to come buy and expensive. I found a 20 hp Kohler out of a John Deere mower, does anyone know if it would fit easy, I have the belt tightner type clutch. My machine is a regular 1816, but somebody upgraded the motor to the same as a 1816C I believe. I can buy the kohler for about 450 bucks, which is a lot cheaper than these $2000 kits that everyone on the internet is raving about. Thanks
 
I have repowered 1816's with 20hp Kolher's,, but I had to make sure it was a model that had a heavy duty roller bearing on the crankshaft to handle the belt/drive load the sysytem on the 1816 puts to the pto end of the crank
 
My dad used a Chevette 4 cylinder in his way back in the day. Not the best idea, balance was a serious issue.

If you are motivated, I think anything can be made to work.
 
If you have a hand clutch that has the browning pulley insert in it you could use an engine with a 1" or 1-7/16" shaft and just change the insert, these can be bought from Motion Industries
 
Onan's don't even make good boat anchors! The Tecumseh we had in our 1816b wasn't too bad until we overhauled it.
 
I have a question. What model of lawn tractor did the 20 hp Kohler motor come out of??? The reason being that the only one I could think of real quick was the JD 400. That series of Kohler(KT) motor was a blow up waiting to happen.

I did change one Case 1816 skid steer over to a Honda motor. Like some one else posted I just changed the pulley insert. I had to modify the motor mounts and make a wiring harness. It was not too bad to do. It has lasted 8-9 years now
 
Your first consideration should be whether the replacement motor will fit between the gunwales. Even that skinny little 16HP needs a remote-mounted oil filter. If it's "giving you trouble" that means it hasn't scattered yet. Do what you want, but by time you do a motor swap, you could have spent $100 and fixed the original engine. It's a good little engine if you tune it up once every 20 years. Parts are NOT hard to find, and regarding price, ask Kohler what they want for a piston for that gem you want to put in there.
 

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