Hammered exmark

I just bought a used 48 exmark walk behind. Its pretty old and needs some work but it was a good price. It starts and runs ok blades engage and cut . The only problem is the gearbox is shot. Its not a peerless trans its the one used on several different brands with a belt driven worm gear and a horizontal gear attached to the drive shaft. I pulled the cover of to have a looksee and saw the horizontol gear was completly mangled. Now i have 2 questions.
What could have happened to cause this? ( so i don't do it ) and why cant i find just the gear? i have tried like 10 different online stores including jacobson and few local shops unfortunatly unless your good buddies with my local exmark dealers (Not Conway)and sit around and shoot the breeze and drink coffee all day instead of work they treat you like crap. so they were useless. can anybody offer any advice or recomendations? Thanks.

 

Try www.j-thomas.com

 

J thomas has everything you need for that mower. may be you didn't have the gear oil to the right level! maybe the allen key ( keyway) came loose inside causing it to self destruct . you can get a complete gear drive for under 200 at j thomas!

 

why not simply put a peerless tranny in it to replace the one already there?

 

It's gonna be a lot cheaper and a lot less work just to replace the whole tranny. We had one go and it was a lot less PITA just to slap a new one on for $200. FYI - It's usually a failed bushing or bearing that causes the input gear and pinion gear to wear.

 

I saw a rebuild kit which was pretty much everything but the output shaft and housing for $100 any expierience with those?

 

j-thomas has all the parts for that and if u look on ebay u may find a trans for it. I know Russo has a ebay store and seen one in it.