From the research I've done some are good and others not so. It depends on the manufacturer. Carrol Stream seems to have a good reputation. The others are kind of hit and miss.

 

I've seen a couple of them melt down,Don't know if it was the valve seats or just a poorly ground cam shaft but they're not pretty when they go.And 1 runaway because of a factory broken ring.

I'm not sure if I would trust one for pulling.You will be running flat out and more than likely you will be torquing out.(running it flat out with Full load till it stalls)I'm not sure that they are built well enough for that.And if it were to blow a rod,where would you get parts for it locally?

I would trust one for pulling a plow or mowing the yard or pulling a cart but that's about it.

 

I agree with chris and eric. Really all the more good theyre worth or mowing duty and plowing but that's the extent of it. If you want a diesel for pulling save yourself some money and get a cub and a good diesel motor.

 

I don't know a whole lot about them but have been planning to use one to repower one of my mf10's. From what I understand they are a Chinese clone of the Yanmar diesel. The Yanmar singles have a good reputation but I doubt the Chinese use the same quality materials and manufacturing. Either way I want one and if I get one I will test it's limits and durability for sure. I've seen a few of them at plow days and was impressed buy the power they they had. One guy had one that was only a 4.5hp in a mf10. He was working the hell out of that thing, it was underpowered but still impressive for a 4.5hp. He and his friend also had a couple of JD's,112's I think, with 6hp's in them and they seemed to pull a brinly 10" fine. They were noisy and poured a lot of smoke. I would definitely go with a 10hp. Carrol Stream seems to have a good reputation as a distributor for them. Here's a couple pics I dug up of the 4.5 massey and the 6.0 jd's.

 

Like the the others said I don't think I would use one for a pulling tractor, but I would like to see someone else do it so I could see what happens! This Allis d10 supposedly has a Carrol Stream 10hp diesel in it:

 

That's quite the ditch digger!!

 

If you look on ebay, most of the Yanmar L100 parts interchange with the Chinese clones.

 

Just like any other engine, their great until they break, A lot of the clones used a nylon cam gear that could strip out. Beleive the newer ones are better. Seen a lot of them on the tracks in the past couple of years.

 

Would be interesting to know if there worth the trouble to do the conversion,or if they will actualy put out the power needed to mow etc continusly

 

Not an answer to the mowing question, but here's a 10hp chinese diesel (powerfist that Princess Auto used to sell).

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151608648352653

It has gone through a few modifications and rebuilds. Definitely entertaining.