Hi Kendall,
I bought my engine from Princess Auto here in Canada, basically the Canadian equivalent of Harbor Frieght. It was branded as their own in-house make, Power Fist, but it had a few decals on it that said Launtop. Princess Auto still lists them in their catalog, but I have yet to see another one in the store since Ibought mine (it was the last one they had and was a display model).
The engine is basically a copy of a Honda GX620. I got the idea from here:
http://www.smallenginewarehouse.com/RepowerItems.asp?Brand=Bobcat&Model=440B
At the time, they were offering 24 hp GX670's as a repower kit. As you can see, they have now moved on to B&S Vangaurd engines.
I learned a few things after doing the conversion:
1. I probably could have left the oil filter on the engine. While I was retrofitting in the aux hydraulics, I removed the lower black firewall plate behind the pump stack and found that I had clear access to the filter in it's stock location. It definitely is easier to get at were I have it mounted, but I don't thing that it is a necessity.
2. The engine that I have only has a 3 amp charging system, which is fine for charging the battery, but not enough for running lights.
3. I ended up putting in an electric fuel pump. The siphin system works once the motor is running, but I think that most of the starting issues that the machine was plagued with from new is due to a lack of fuel / loss of siphin.
Other than that, the conversion has been a great improvement over stock.
Cheers,
SR
