My personal engine heachache.

[KE4AVB]

331877-0036-G1

Well this one is on my personal mower. It has problems over the years with blowing two head gaskets, losing a camshaft, and exhaust valve seat coming loose.

A couple weeks I started mowing my lawn when it start cutting out under load only. Foot tall grass but shorter grass it was fine mowing. At first I found water in the fuel filter so I thought was the cause. Well cleaned that out and mowed nearly an acre with the engine acting up. Never cleared up. So to the shop it went. After cool down pulled and cleaned the carburetor. Still the same problem. Tried new fuel pump and a clipped solenoid. Still the same problem. Pull the kill wire, no joy.

So pull the head to check the valve seat in case the staking didn't hold. It was good but the intake stem seal leaking and valves needing grinding. Upon re assembly was when I found the problem. Guess what it was? I should had found it upon my initial inspection.

[38racing]

Intake valve guide moved?

[KE4AVB]

Intake valve guide moved?

Nope. Just something I over looked during the initial inspection (external part of the engine).

[Arkie]

Single cyclinder OHV Briggs engine?



Valve lash changed due to, well it changed.

Spark plug bad or not even tightened down.

Spark plug wire just slightly hanging on

By the way I have a permanent remedy
for them valve seats that come back loose from just staking.

Just a hint:
If you will eyeball the aluminum metal around them seats on Briggs engines mosthave lots of room for drilling and tapping 2 or 3 small machine screws and the head of the screw holding the seat's edge in 2 or 3 places.
Just use a hand drill and a tap.
I have not had any come loose since I started doing this 4 years ago, Staking is kinda like rolling the dice and hope for the best.

[KE4AVB]

Well Arkie you are fairly close on the plug wire but it wasn't barely hanging on.

It was burned badly from laying on the exhaust bolt though not burned to the wire; just enough the the high voltage arc through the remaining insulation. Dumb Briggs had too short of plug wire which lead the lead being routed too close to the exhaust manifold. New longer lead installed routing away from the exhaust manifold.

[Arkie]

Yep, kinda disgusting when WE are repairing other peoples mowers and we crawl on our own to do a quick mow of our own so we can get back to working on other mowers & engines and ZAP, down goes our own eq and usually not close to the shop, too far away to attempt pushing it too the shop by hand.
Hard to tow one of them mower by yourself. I've got a little stout 2 wheel wagon trailer behind a reliable lawn tractor, low to the ground and I can jack up the front of a small tractor/mower, set the front or rear on the trailer and go to shop or sometimes I just take them to my SALVAGE for use as parts.


AND it's usually a two or 3 day repair needed on our own.

[KE4AVB]

Yelp they always since to break down at the farthest point on the property. At least it is only six acres instead of the 14 I had maintained previously. I usually have fox them where they breakdown. This time I was able nurse it to the shop but it got put on the back burner for a week while I was taking care of customer mowers. Last time was a stick that got jammed in the CVT drive.