Wanted: Briggs O/S piston/ring assemblies

[creia]

Looking to purchase Briggs part #'s 295589 (.020"), and 295590 (.030") O/S piston/ring assemblies. This is for the old 3 HP aluminum bore flatheads. I know that most of you professional techs don't work on these much anymore. I was hoping that you may have these part #'s in your inventory and just collecting dust. If you have any just collecting dust and you want to sell please send me a private message.
Thank you,
Michael

[38racing]

My aftermarket only shows the 295587 standard.

[Skywatcher]

Hi Creia

The only item I have in stock of that nature is a Stens 500-124 (B&S 298984) +.020" rings for 3 through 5 HP engines. I've probably had those in stock since 2005. Don't know if those would be any use to you. All the best,

Sky

[KE4AVB]

Now you are running into some of the same problems I have seen the last year where OEMs are not providing anything over STD size now. This makes it impossible to re-work an engine that needs to be oversized. I had to kill off recently two Kohler engines because of this.

And I am seeing some troubling signs about Briggs parts lately too. Fellow tech on another forum has had a carb on order since March and camshafts since April both are still on back order. Also several parts that I needed are also on back order so I had go the after market route just to get my customers back up and running. Even the .020 oversized piston the OP listed is on back order. And it has been several years at least since Briggs sold .030 over pistons.

To me it looks Briggs is still collapsing in on itself as they can't even provide some of the parts for current engines. I have been lucky so far as my stock pile has gotten me through so far but it is thinning out. I did order a couple 796863 o-rings Saturday hoping that they are still available. I was hoping however that someone had their size handy where I could have the dash sized ones. They were $3.51 ea and my price file showed that I was to sell them for $3.35. Needless to say they got to be markup somewhat to cover the costs. Anyway I figure their size when the new ones come in.

But I can't really blame the Briggs parts suppliers for not wanting to deal with Briggs either after Briggs stab them in the back. But of course Power Distributors were just as hateful with me as I couldn't buy in the volume they wanted me to do. Well if PD would have match my other Briggs distributor discount they would gotten the business. So they having to sell at a much less price to A&I which in turns sells to me when all they had to do was match A&I prices and made a larger profit.

It has been an problem filled year here with distributors. Some of their reps prefer to lie to me and some just want even work me when they introduce problems. Currently one is serving a 6 month suspension ending Jan 1 for lying and the other is now serving suspension end Mar 1 over a credit card issue.

I place the last one on a 30 day order suspension until we could work out the credit card problem they introduced but they refused to straighten it out. After two months of trying I just shut down ordering from them until year. Besides I have second distributor that filling in on most of the orders currently. It just pisses me off when they think I got to bend over backwards and kiss their backsides to get the parts.

[creia]

Thank you all for the replies thus far.
Just to be clear, at this time I am only really interested in OEM Briggs parts- I know it will be a challenge to find them. I am hoping that some of you may have these sitting in your inventory from years ago when you were still doing rebores.
Thank you,
Michael

[SUKI]

I think that is going to be a tuff search as if the other shops are like mine we have been only ordering these as needed over the last 10 yrs due to this part of the repair industry has basically died off. Most DIYers are still trying to put rings in without proper sizing.

[bgsengine]

Yeah, what KE said.. if it was me, I'd probably forget about relatively recent active dealers and try and focus on long-since-retired dealers and/or their auctioneers/estate sales specialists (You could advertise in publications to do with estate sales/auctions, etc, if you had the moolah "We buy old Genuine Briggs & Stratton Inventories prior to 1990" or something to that effect... so instead of you trying to find them, they might remember seeing your ad and come to you, even months later...