154 rear engine seal replacement

[Wildbill004]

sooo i bought a 154 and thought all i would need is paint . Now i find myself here fortunately there's a lot of sites that sell parts for these tractors still today including the seals. However I've never done engine work and I'm hoping the repair manual I bought will at least give me a proper breakdown and reassembly. But I'm finding unfortunately even if you replace the rear seal often times more than not it will still leak and you need to send the retainer to get work done. Fortunately again there's an individual that does just this however I'm finding this site hard to navigate does anyone have his contact information. When I get to manual the next few weeks plan to do the breakdown. I can only hope did I do not have to remove the engine to get to the seal XD i know but here's hoping all's I have to do is remove the shaft to gain access. I think not. The engine also seems underpowered as it bogs down when mowing grass.

[MiCarl]

Welcome!

I'm the one that aimed you here from facebook for the retainer upgrade. It looks like tst has sent you a Private message, look for notification at top right just below the search bar.

Hopefully one of the number series guys will know whether you can get to that seal and retainer without pulling the engine.

As far as power goes you need to do a compression check as the facebook folks recommended. That will tell you whether the engine is tired or if you need to look elsewhere for your power problem.

You do need to bear in mind that your 154 is rated at 15hp. You probably have a 60" deck and that's not a lot of ponies for that large a mower, especially when the grass is tall and thick. This time of year, where I live, grass gets pretty tall and thick if it's not mowed every 48 hours. I used to mow with an 18hp lawn tractor with 44" deck and when the grass got heavy it had to work pretty hard.

Good luck!

[Eugene]

Welcome.

Before you replace the rear main seal, conduct a complete engine tune up. Start with compression tests.

If you need to overhaul the engine, that would be the time to replace the seal. Also, if the compression turns out to be OK/fine you can afford to lose a bit of engine oil. Pint of oil every couple mowings is much less time consuming and less costly than an engine overhaul.

[outdoors4evr]

You can access the rear seal without removing the engine. If your 154 is an early serial number, it may require unbolting and sliding the engine forward so that you can remove the driveshaft.
TST does an amazing job on the rear main seal machining and new seal install! I have a machined retainer in my numbered series and I highly recommend!