I THINK you're stuck with a dying product. IMO..if you wanted a beefier trans you should have considered that when you bought the Husky you did. But what do you define as a "short" period of time? My 96 era 14 hp 38" Broadmoor is on it's last legs only because the hydro is dying a slow death. Is 16-17 years acceptable or should it have run longer? I don't know.

I'm kinda having the same thoughts as you as I'm looking to replace by Broadmoor with a tractor with a 50"+ deck. I now have 1.5 - 2.5 acres of actual grass to mow (now am not mowing the extra acre) and the 38" deck takes 3.5 hours to mow...longer if I want certain patterns in the grass.

Do I buy a $6000 Simplicity Conquest or a $3000 Cub/Husky? The Conquest has a beefier tranny and some other things that pump up the price....but double?

Sorry...didn't mean to hijack your thread!

About the only thing a person can do once they are stuck with one of these light hearted hydros is to change the oil in the tranny about every 200 hours of service (based on 50 hours per season usage).
Though these units typically (nowadays anyhow) DO NOT have an oil drain plug (per se)....................it is feasible to remove the entire transaxle assembly and flip it upside down over a suitable catch pan and let it drain for a few days or a week.
The oil is the COMPONENT that fails first, and I guess it is fortunate that it does present some obvious operational problems that simply can't be overlooked (or ignored) before the REAL, and expensive damage to the metal components commences.
Hydrostatic drive devices function on hydraulic and hydrodynamic principles. Because of the great amount of heat (and pressure) that is generated during these hydraulic processes, the oil is subjected to conditions that are very similar what happens inside an engine, maybe worse in some respects.
The oil loses its "additive package" and anti foaming qualities which normally make the oil behave at high temperatures.
Once the oil's additives are depleted, the oil will begin to "foam" (aerate) and this aeration absolutely stifles the hydraulic properties of the oil and essentially the oil becomes useless as a hydraulic medium. Furthermore, because the oil now has entrained air (and oxygen), the very high temperatures that are generated at a microscopic scale inside the hydraulic pump and hydraulic motor can support actual COMBUSTION of trace amounts of oil..............which cause more degradation of the oil.
The other often neglected aspect of hydrostatic drives is the "cooling system". Typically, the ONLY cooling system provided for hydrostats in in yard/garden tractors is a fan mounted atop the tranny input pulley to wash air down across the trans case. When grass and other debris is allowed to accumulate on top of the case, it acts exactly like insulation in the attic of your house and permits the heat to rise a lot higher than it would if the fan could do its job.
Check for debris build up each time you get ready to use the tractor and if you see ANY clippings or leaves.......blow them away with with your leak blower or compressed air.

As you mentioned 15 years is a great life span what I meant by dying product is it seems in general the transmission last only 3 to 5 years which I would expect the tractor to last longer, I did find a thread where a gentleman describes a swap of k46 to a larger k71 which according to him has made a world of difference. And I purchased a tractor because outside of transmission it is a heavier duty tractor designed to last longer and work harder, once again outside the transmission on it.

Here is a link that might be useful: k46 problem

mownie, Since it would be a pain to take the entire trans-axle assembly out and dump, do you know of a safe place to drill and tap it to make a drain plug?

Surely someone has done this?

Someone has done it, I just don't recall enough of it to find it in the archives.
As for myself, I think it is much less painful in the wallet to remove the entire axle assembly for drain and refill.............than to remove the axle assembly and put a new one in to replace the failed one.
As to drilling and tapped a hole:
I would be skeptical of trying to choose a spot for it without having seen the inside of the trans case.
There might be some oil passages cast into the case, if you drill into one of them, well.............you will be in deep, dire straits.