I have an old Lawn Vac that I pull behind my John Deere Rider. Last Sunday the engine seized up, so now, of course, I need to replace it. The engine is about 20 or more years old and has had a lot of use before I bought it. I don't even know what brand the lawn vac is as it has no markings. I have used it for about 7 years now myself. It has a Briggs and Stratton 5 hp Horizontal. I was told that a Harbor Freight 6.5 HP [212cc] Engine would replace this with no issues. So I bought one, they are about $160 new in the box.
I'm curious if this Predator engine has the same mounting pattern and shaft alignment as the Briggs and Stratton engine. The shaft basically goes into a turbine housing and has a two piece turbine blade that uses two bolts, nuts and lock washers to clamp itself to the Ø3/4" output shaft from the engine. I just replaced this a week before it seized up as the old one was wasted and would no longer pick up leaves. The impeller brand is PECO, but the the lawn vac assembly itself looks nothing like one of their products. I assume it built by someone as a custom. In which they used the PECO turbine Assembly.
I haven't unboxed the predator engine yet because I haven't had a chance. This is my weekend project and I thought I would ask this question before I got started and see if anyone had a similar experience with this same engine swap.
Any help or insight on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
----update---
So I got impatient yesterday after I got home from work and started the project. I unbolted the turbine blade and housing from the engine and then removed the engine. Was a rather simple task. I then unboxed the new engine, The predator, and mounted it after I cleaned up the base where it was bolted too. It used the same bolt pattern. Also the 4 bolt side mount on the output shaft side was also the same as the Briggs & Stratton engine. I removed the mounting studs from the old engine and they screwed right into the new engine. Both have 5/16-24 fine threaded holes. So then I tried to mount the turbine housing and this is when things did not work. Bolt hole pattern is the same, but the exhaust is a bit different on the new engine. The exhaust assembly sticks out past the face of the out put shaft face. So I removed the muffler assembly and then the turbine house bolted on like it was supposed to.
So now I was thinking that I would have have to come up with a custom exhaust pipe and muffler to make this engine work. I remember a fella from work say that these Predator engines have a huge following in the Go-cart and Mini-bike world. So I searched eBay to see if anyone sold custom parts, and boy do they ever. It took me less than 10 minutes and I ordered the pipe and muffler I needed. The pipe is basically a straight pipe that shoots straight up instead of off to the side. This gave me the required clearance I needed to mount the Turbine housing. I then dec8ided to purchase some Woven Fiberglass Heat shield cloth to wrap the new exhaust pipe with so no one gets burned while using the lawn vac when they are dumping a load because the levers are close to the exhaust pipe.
I should receive the new exhaust pipe, muffler & pipe wrap in a day or two. That will give me time to sandblast the turbine housing and repaint it and purchase some oil for the engine and fuel stabilizer for the gas tank. All in all so far I think this is going very well. I will post an update when I get the exhaust on and running.