This is the cam shaft and water pump for my John Deere 425 garden tractor after 860 hours of work. It suddenly failed while I was backing it out of the barn. The machine had been running perfectly but when this happened I was all done. The engine sounded different when I rolled it. It rolled easily since it had no compression. I never thought of a completely broken engine so I checked for spark and for fuel. Of course, I had both. This repair cost $1028 in this area and tied up my mower for three weeks. I have been driving John Deere equipment since I was six, now I am sixty-two, and I have never had them fail this badly before.
This model has a Kawasaki engine that was as smooth as silk. It was so well balanced that when one of its' two cylinders was misfiring, you noticed no vibration in the engine. All you had was a lose of power. These broken, non-metalic gears might have helped make the engine smooth. Too bad, they regularly fail at low engine hours. This problem is reported all over the net. Too bad, I didn't check for it before I lost my water pump too.
