Kohler Courage Single

I noticed the Kohler Courage single cylinder is back in big box riding mowers. Was wondering if they figured out the weak spot in the castings and braced
them adequately and came out with a new line? They had a great low cost to produce idea, just had some serious kinks that had to get worked out. I looked at it somewhat but it was covered up with all the things on an engine and I couldn't see the top of the main casting where mine cracked and vibrated half a dozen bolts loose. Maybe the "fixins" are inside......maybe there aren't any "fixins".

While on the subject noticed lots of Kohler V twins in what used to be BS V twin slots. Wonder why?

I don't know what is up with the Kohler single cylinder engines.

The Kohler Representatives were showing a totally new single cylinder engine that they said would replace the Courage single engine at Service School last winter. I have not seen any of those engines on machines yet. Their layout resembles a Briggs and Stratton single cylinder, with carburetor to the side.

As far as those Courage single engines goes, I understand the first problem they had was an inexperienced person doing assembly. He was letting oil fall into the bolt holes, then the automatic torque equipment were not able to get an actual torque on the fastner because of oil in the bolt holes.

The thing is, This year, every few weeks I have serviced one of those early Courage engines with a low spec number (the ones that tended to crack) that is still giving good service to the owner. So at least a few were put together right at the factory.

Those also had the counterweight that moved on a slide in the cover, like single cylinder Briggs engines have used for years. You never see one of those counterweights losing the pivot bolt out and then smashing through the block. But I understand that Briggs and Stratton complained, so they re-designed the counterweight to pivot on a shoulder bolt. Then the failure for the next series spec numbers was the bolt would loosen and fall out, then the counterweight would smash through the block.

As far as the Kohler Courage twin goes, the Courage twins used a lot of the Command internal parts, like piston and connecting rod (The early ones at least. Kohler did re-design the piston at some point.) and they just never gave the amount of trouble that we saw with the single cylinder engines. I think of them as pretty robust engines. They no longer carry the Courage name, though, because of the connection with the single cylinder engines. The newer ones have larger cooling fins and things like blower covers and air filters don't interchange with the early ones.

My biggest complaint with the early Courage twins is that it would be nice to be able to look into the carburetor throat through the air filter box. So you can see if there is gas pooling in there and see the position of the choke.

Thank you sir for taking the time to share that info with us. Nice to know that the company is doing something about the problem. On the cracking, I just thought that the single 20 had so much torque that the casting wasn't rigid enough to survive the repetitive smacking. I have had numerous singles over the years but they were Commands and were less hp....closest was either 16.5 or 17.5 hp, forget which. Good engines.