we had a older hustler with a 72" deck and it had a diesel on it and it was great! if memory serves me right it was a kabota, had a pto deck. we bought a new hustler z serise that has a 24or 25hp gasser on it and it works ok but the diesel had way more power and wouldnt pull down in tall grass. only draw back on the diesel is the inital cost but i thought it was worth it and 10gallons would last all day

 

.................10/4 on the Kubota,we have a Grasshopper 928D with a 72 inch deck and a 3 cyl kubota diesel on our campground in florida,it mow's over 25 acre's each time we cut,it's a 2001 and has over 1800 hr's on it and we have our 1st issue with it,the front seal has a slow drip to it and it started AFTER we took the mower in to put a new pto shaft(not motor related) in,being as it drive's from the front i'm thinking they did something to it,did not leak before it went in,it went to grasshopper,NOT kubota for the pto shaft.

 

That is a pretty cool setup. John Deere uses alot of Yanmar engines, i'm surprised this hasn't been in a mower yet.

 

do they make a less than 20 HP diesel lawn mover (ride on)

 

pretty much all the major manufacurers do, Massey, Deere, Kubota, Simplicity, my fvs are the little kubota BX series4x4 23 hp and can have a loader/backhoe and a mower deck

 

JD makes a diesel lawn mower that is what you are looking for

 

You need the engine out of a 355D john deere. 18HP vert. shaft and I believe the radiator is on top. It is a yanmar, and it was also used in the F735 front mount mower. Stout little engines, but they shake something fierce at idle!!!

 

Found this old thread, thought these links might help anybody interested:

http://www.hatz-diesel.com/fileadmin...20_50V_Deu.pdf

and

http://www.hatz-diesel.com/fileadmin..._1D90V_ENG.pdf