IH 184 tractor/mower qestions

Just picked up a nice 184, with a mower deck. It doesnt have alot of power,, when the mower deck is running and dropped down and go up a small hill it will darn near stall out. Book says its around 13 hp,, (60ci 4 cyl) ran a compression test, 100 psi on all 4. Starts good runs ok, sounds like it has a slight miss once its warmed up. It has a fast low gear,, and Im wondering if the mower deck is running too fast and taking too much of its power, can the main PTO pulley be changed to slow the deck down a bit to help it? Not afraid to rebuild the engine,, dont smoke or use oil, just low on power or something isnt right. Its a homemade mower deck, and does a good job,, but might have to do some tweeking to get it just right. your thoughts? Thanks in advance!

My 154 is short of power; because they are only about 13 HP and the 50 " mower has to have very sharp blades or the tractor will power down if the grass is very high. I believe there is an optional slow low gear that would really help. Darald in Sk

Air filter in good shape? My 154 runs just fine with a 5ft deck,in 2nd gear, just not in high grass. Accually it sounds like youre running in the wrong gear.

You might try setting the valve lash at .015, could have a tight one. That would cause a miss at operating temperature.

Yeah, found an exhaust valve tight yesterday, that cover isnt easy to get off it without removing the carb, so I didnt get to all of em just yet. Im wondering since the mower deck is homemade the pulleys may be a bit too much for it and need to be slowed down to help it out, maybe just the drive pulley off the back?? Also, the book says around 2200 rpm full load, I dont think its getting there,, it sounds more like 1600 under a load, it revs up to maybe 2000, so it might be a bit out of adjustemnt on the governor. I watched the governor linkage as it was mowing, and it does open up the carb when the rpms drop, but only for a moment. Even as the rpm drops it open the carb, then I see the lever close the carb back up again and drops off even faster. Im sure i was in low gear,, I also have a cub lo boy (looks like a minature 350) with the exact same engine that does the exact same thing Im describing the 184 is doing,,, its fast in low gear too, but slower rpm for sure on that unit. Id like to get em both going and working right. The lo boy smokes a bit,, even though it was reringed and valves ground. Not too sure whats going on there.

Adjust the valves. Do a complete tune-up (plugs, points, condensor, cap, rotor, wires). Adjust the timing.

Timing is the biggie. If you get that off by a little, the tractor will run fine but it won't have the power. Mark the distributor, loosen the two bolts just until the distributor will barely turn, and adjust it while listening to the tone of the engine. You'll find a sweet spot where the engine sounds relaxed and accelerates smoothly. Timing with a timing light doesn't quite get you there.

If you use a smaller pulley on the mower deck, the blades will not spin fast enough to do a good job mowing.

My 154 and 184 are both underpowered but my 154 was even more so and it has the 2 speed rr end in it which helped but something was still wrong. I finally narrowed it down to the govenor and linkage was binding. When putting the govenor housing back on the manual says to line up the timing marks. Well I had a heck of a time finding the timing mark because the book never said it was on the back side of the gear..It's still not a powerhouse but it does react better to a load. Good luck, they are nice tractor to mow with if the grass isn't too long then I use the BN with the Woods belly mower..Fred

I forgot to mention that my 184 had the same miss and since I added some Marvel Mystery Oil to the fuel it has gone away...Goood Stuff...Fred