Craftsman Tractor Won't Start.

[bobodu]

Pull the dipstick and lay it sideways on a piece of white paper...now pull it slowly towards you. It will leave an oil trail behind that you can read. Ahah !! Here ya go!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMKeFspGKbk

[hanz63]

JD 30 second oil change system. 2 thumbs down. How many of us perform a full PM by just changing a third of the oil and an oil filter? Dipstick reading help: Clean the stick and color it with a marker. Good for one use.

[lefty]

Good tips. I'll try them both. Thank you.

[38racing]

Pull the dipstick and lay it sideways on a piece of white paper...now pull it slowly towards you. It will leave an oil trail behind that you can read. Ahah !! Here ya go!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMKeFspGKbk

Sometimes I find the level looks different on the back side versus the front side. The towel trick show show if that's the case.

[lefty]

Thanks to everyone for the help on this one. I just wanted to report back with the final disposition. Although I ran into all sorts of different issues on this one, I finally discovered the main culprit. Something I should have checked from the very beginning and something BG had mentioned at the beginning of the thread...of course. Flywheel key.

The flywheel was about 180 degrees off once I checked it. I guess I'm glad I chased down all those avenues as it clearly needed a head gasket and a needle but ultimately, it was the key. Anyway, I enjoyed working on it and am very thankful for the help I got from all of you. I got a chance to dig into one of these with the hydraulic lifters and learned a lot. The machine runs well now and the owner is happy.

[38racing]

I'm guessing then that your references to tdc were based on flywheel magnet location and not actual piston location.

[lefty]

I'm guessing then that your references to tdc were based on flywheel magnet location and not actual piston location.

Negative. That's the weird part. I verified TDC while visually verifying TDC on the compression stroke. It was easy because I had taken the front apart and could clearly see into the cylinder with a flashlight. I further verified after taking the valve cover off by disconnecting the pushrods and eliminating the valves from the equation altogether. As a newby, I often feel more comfortable doing it that way. Still kept getting that weird behavior. I started thinking that maybe the behavior was coming from my gauge but I tried it on a known good engine and it worked perfectly. It remains a mystery. All I know is that once I replaced the flywheel key, it ran like a top.

But fret not...we may just be getting it back again. The owner reported to me that he used it for about 3 hours, two cuts, and when he was putting it away, it started to run rough on him...had trouble keeping RPMS up. You know dam well I'm going to check that flywheel key first this time.

It used a woodruff style, not the rectangular style that I've seen in other applications. I replaced it with the exact dimensioned one from an assortment kit I have but maybe the grade was different and it sheered again. Torque specs on the bolt call for 49 foot pounds and that's what I used. Does that seem like enough? The flywheel on my Toro with a briggs was 100 I think.