Briggs 17HP OHV Troubles

First I'd like to say hello and glad I found this site.

Now to the problem, my mother has a Craftsman riding mover with the 17HP OHV Platinum engine, on searching I have seen posts that these engines have troubles with head gaskets. But I think a little info I need to share, this (well actually 2 of them, other being a cub cadet) were in a flood, totally submerged for a few days, she had her local "fix anything man" take it, he 'said' he had it running but returned it with a dead battery with no proof it could run. Here is where I stand, I flushed it over and over, disassembled the carb (no way he had it running as the float was encased in 'cement' mud) it has spark, fuel 'seems' to be proper, the fuel solenoid is clicking and free, all safety interlocks are good, if I give it a shot of starting fluid it will run for just a few seconds with leads me to think it's not getting fuel. I watch through the carb and it is sucking fuel, but it's blowing back out the intake, not getting sucked into the engine. if I 'choke' the carb with a rubber gardening glove only leaving 1/10 of it open it will run (thinking not enough vacuum). The handyman did have the side cover (underneath the carb off as evidenced by the blue silicone.)

So, do I have a valve problem, head gasket problem, etc, etc. Point me in a direction.
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Thanks in advance for any guidance anyone can offer.[/b:1a037e9c1a]

P.S. It ran perfect before taking a swim. If I get this one going the cub is next (but the crank will only turn 180 degrees before locking solid.)

Does it have an electric fuel shutoff solenoid under the carburetor float bowl?

If so, it may not be opening because there's no power to the solenoid, or it has stuck or failed internally.

Sorry, I missed your sentence about the solenoid in my first "read" of your post.

Thanks for looking Bob, yes like I said the fuel solenoid is moving, it's just weird that it won't suck the gas into the engine. I live about 10 miles away so it get worked on in spurts of a hour or so. I'm taking a leak down tester with me tomorrow and going to pull the rockers to try to start narrowing things down. Am I on the right road?

Did you pull the spark plug out of the cadet? may still have water in cyl. a stuck intake valve would give you a spit back in carb.on the one you are working on

(quoted from post at 22:07:35 06/03/08) Did you pull the spark plug out of the cadet? may still have water in cyl. a stuck intake valve would give you a spit back in carb.on the one you are working on

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Thanks Jim, yes I got the plug out of the cub. with a pipe wrench on the front of the crank I only get a half rotation out of it, pulled the rocker cover on it also, the valves move, so it is either in the bottom end or maybe the hydro unit (I know nothing about, could it lock up 1/2 rotation from being full of water for awhile?)

Pull the dipstick see if the oil is over full I'm assuming you haven't drained it yet as you are working on another engine.

(quoted from post at 22:46:05 06/03/08) Pull the dipstick see if the oil is over full I'm assuming you haven't drained it yet as you are working on another engine.

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The cub is drained right now, when I first got to that one it was full to the top of the oil fill hole with oil & water, but not mixed, so I'm thinking the upper parts of the sleeve (if it's a sleeved motor) is rusted up stopping the piston) for this reason I'm working on the other one because I can get it to fire and run for brief periods.

You may have some of that crud under the valves not letting them seat. Hold your hand over the throat of the carburetor and see if there's good suction. You need good intake manifold vacuum to suck that fuel into the engine. The rings may may full of crud too. Hal

The spitting of fuel vapor back through the carb. may be the acrion of the de-compression release which bump the intake valve of off of it's seat when the piston is about halfway up during cranking.

Kent

Plugged exhaust?

Aaron

I am headed out to my mothers this evening, all very good ideas for what to look for. I will let everyone know how things go.

OK, a update, I just decided to tear into it and after getting all the cooling shields off things became clear. Blue silicone oozing all around the head, So I pulled the head, guess what NO HEAD GASKET, just silicone... The cylinder bore looks good (water must of not gotten there) as does everything else. So I wrote a parts list for my mother to pick up (full gasket set & carb rebuild kit.)

But a few questions:

Torque for the head bolts.
Clearance on the valves.

Thanks for all the ideas everyone.

Valve clearance is .002 to .004 inches on the intake. I set at .003. Exhaust is .004 to .006 inches. I set at .005. I do not have my service manuel in front of me so I can not tell you the head bolt torque, BUT you should have the service manuel so you can use the correct tightening pattern to tighted the head bolts. I also hope you have an inch/pound torque wrench to do the work with. You might find the manuel on line from Briggs for the pattern and the torque value.

Kent

Just a update for everyone. I put it all back together tonight. Things went smooth until I went to rebuild the carb. The previous handy man had tried to take the main jet out and buggered it all up. I ended up taping a T10 torx t-handle into it to extract it. The service place I ended up getting the parts from copied the pages for me that I need with head bold sequence, etc. It's fired and ran on the first crank.

Thanks to everyone for ideas. Next up: The 180 degree frozen Cub. (I'll start a new thread when I get to it.)