19.5 HP Briggs burning oil

OH Boy

Well-known Member
Guys I have a Craftsman garden tractor, about 6 years old, that all of a sudden is burning a lot of oil. It's a 19.5 hp single cylinder engine. I have to top it off after running it about 2-3 hours. Its not leaking, no puddles. I do see a lot of greasy buildup around the exhaust. I get a cloud of blue smoke when I throttle up from idle too. It runs fine. Is this something that could be easily fixed/overhauled or should I be on the hunt for a replacement engine? I am mechanically inclined, used to work on Honda Motorcycles 20 years ago, haven't ever worked on a Briggs engine before so don't know much about them. Thanks for any advice you can share.
 
Most of those 19.5s were the over head valve single cylinder.
If that is what you have,You either have a blown head gasket, or worn rings.

Either way, you are getting too much combustion pressure in the crankcase and it is forcing oil through the crankcase breather, which connects to the intake, where it runs any oil that gets through back through the engine aand burns it.

It would be worth the cost of the gaskets to check the head gasket. They have a tendancy to blow between the pushrods.
 
Thanks I will check that out as soon as I can find a head gasket for it.

Once I am in there it wouldn't be that much more difficult to replace the rings too I guess.
 
Do a leakdown test on eng BEFORE pulling head,this will give you a better idea of what problem is & what you're getting into,if it's a leaking head gasket it's a fairly simple straight forward in place job replacing gasket,if rings are the problem you're talking removing eng from tractor & a complete teardown of same.In addition you should take block to a machine shop & have cyl bore measured for wear as block may need to be bored & throwing a std set of rings in eng may not cure your problem if ring wear is involved.

It is also HIGHLY recommened that you get a service/repair for your mod# eng as you WILL need same for head bolt tighting sequence,torque setting for head bolts & valve clearance in addition to any other info you need about eng.
 
Yeah I was thinking I need to get a service manual for it too if I am going to tear it down. Thanks for your input.
 
No need to mess with rings. Just the head gasket. You will find it blown at about the 3 o'clock position when looking at the piston top. Gaskets should be easy to come by. Don't lose the little caps on top of the valve stems.
Tim
 

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