I am not a huge fan of the sound of a diesel engine but this is interesting AND Sir, what a clear and articulate explanation of how you went about it. I have several Horse Tillers most with cheap Predator engines, I will definitely be considering this option. Thanks for your time (to all involved) in sharing.
Thank you for posting this. You can disregard the negative comments; if the user can't automatically appreciate the benefits of slow revolution, high torque diesel power, then they will never understand why you did the conversion. Can you update us on the performance over the season? I am interested in how she is performing. I plan on doing the same conversion on my mid 90's Troybilt Horse II.
Thanks, I am planning to make a follow-up video soon. Two seasons in, it was a great decision. I refer to it now as, "Luigi" (my Italian gangster friend).
I put one of those Chinese, Yanmar clone diesel engines on my 1988 Horse (III) PTO tiller when the 7 hp Briggs engine got a bit tired. I had to order another engine pulley and have a local machine shop bore out the center and re-key it for the 1" shaft of the new engine. For a year, I used a 10hp Yanmar clone, but that was too big and made the tiller nose-heavy, though the tiller suffered no damage. I then put a 7hp, Yanmar clone on it (Google: "178F diesel) and I've run that now for 9 years. I also have the PTO generator, log spitter, and chipper shredder and the diesel runs all of them fine. The only problems I've had is that the extra vibration of the diesel destroyed the welds of the handlebar cross brace. As well, I cannot get the starter batteries to last. I used the standard Troy Bilt battery shelf out of their catalog when I added the 7hp diesel, as this engine had an electric starter, but the engine vibration shakes the batter on its mount so badly, the batteries only last about 6 months to a year. I *love* how the diesels can till slowly - at idle speed, without bogging, surging, or stalling. The fact that all these diesel engines (Lombardini, Yanmar, and Yanmar clones) of necessity are fuel injected, means there is no balky, cheap, float carburetor that makes power delivery much smoother over a large RPM range. I found my engines on EBay and paid $350 or so for each one. (Prices are now around $600 for these things.) In truth, the Yanmar clone engines do have some quality issues. I had to add some shims to the fuel tank mounts as the tanks were rubbing up against the engine and wearing holes in them. The smaller engine also had loose head bolts that caused some running problems until I figured that out.
I forgot to add that the 7hp diesel uses about 1/2 to 1/3rd the fuel of the gas engine, owing, I think, to the much higher compression and fuel injection of the diesel compared to the flat-head, cheap-carburetored Briggs engine. I can run the log splitter all afternoon on one tank of gas (about 3 quarts) compared to about 1 1/2 hours on the Briggs gas tank (about 1 gallon.) Tilling is similar.
Nice concept, but a couple of observations: To begin with cost..I used a Harbor freight 6.5 hp Honda clone (99.00)on mine. The weight. There is a weak point on TB Horses where the transmission and pipe shaft meet. The weld or transmission housing can crack at this point, and by adding an extra 70 lbs to the tiller there will also be a lot of wear on the axle bushings. Also the noise of a diesel. Like I said nice concept, but it's like putting a big V8 on a little pick up. It may work, but will it last.
I don’t want to hear you complain about China because most of the products at Harbor Freight are made in China. Even the US flags. You are buying weapons for them.
Great information! I would live to do this swap on my PTO horse! If I could afford the diesel motor! I will however be stealing (and sharing) your weight plate idea for the tine guard, that is the best I have seen yet! Thanks!
The engine will use less fuel and be able to run at a lower rpm since the torque is more. A perfect review. I just picked up a used one which are better than today's made units. Dont loan it out unless diesel is sent along. Be safe everyone.
This may cause you some problems, especially if it is a pre-1979 Horse Tiller because after 1979 they made slight changes to the transmission to enable it to better handle an 8 horse power engine. Before that they were a max of 6 horse power. The extra power destroys the rear main shaft bearing in no time.
That’s amazing! Do you heat your greenhouse? I have to replace the plastic on mine every year so I want to use polycarbonate panels. I want to put a cactus in it but I’ve had it for 47 years now so I don’t want to have a power outage and have it die. Maybe I can use propane for backup heaters. Congratulations and thanks!
It really runs good. It should for the money you spent on that engine. Don't sell or discard that original engine. They were really good Briggs engines. They don't make the cast iron bore engines anymore that I know of. That was a neat change over.
Zella: Any chance you could post a quick update on this? I am just about to make the switch myself and want to see how the Lombardini is working out for you. Thanks
So much work for a tiller. You said you had rebuilt the Briggs, did you not replace the rings then? I would have replaced the rings, gaskets, and remounted it on the tiller. But hey, if you have money to burn, your tiller. Thats one heck of a knock you have there. Eeeeek.
Stick with diesel fuel biodiesel gels real easy compared to diesel fuel and you should have already discovered it uses much less fuel than a gas engine.
Gel?? in the summer time when if is used? i can see it geling in the winter yes. but who uses a tiller in the winter? till up the snow to plant snow flowers??lol
That ‘knocking’ is the rocker arm movement of all diesels. Diesel vehicles now have a lot of sound deadening around the engine to hide the sound. Where have you been hiding?
@@SLFYSH The "diesel knock" has nothing to do with rocker arms, it is the sound of the injected fuel/explosion hitting the piston crown and/or the sound of the fuel instantly exploding. On a spark ignition engine, the homogeneous and stoichiometric fuel air charge has a flame front that moves away from the spark, on a properly tuned diesel, there is usually an overabundance of compressed superheated air already in the cylinder and the fuel is injected very quickly into this superheated air which causes a sudden combustion of all the fuel particles at once instead of a moving flame in a spark ignited engine. While there may be more mechanical noise in a diesel compared to a similarly sized spark engine, that itself is not the familiar "diesel knock" it's just overall noise resulting from larger, heavier reciprocating components. Modern automotive type diesels don't inject all the fuel at once, they usually have the fuel charge split up into 2 or more injections to dampen the initial explosion, many have a small "pilot injection" of fuel to act as a flame source for the larger main injection that follows, this greatly reduces the "diesel knock"
