Life expectancy of Kawasaki liquid cooled engine

GLMPA

Member
With good maintenance, what would the average life expectancy of a Kawasaki liquid cooled engine in hours be, before you would typically require a rebuild or other major engine repair?
 
Just replaced the block in a Wheelhorse at less than 300 hours. Electrolysis ate a hole into a cylinder at the deck. Highly maintained tractor.
 
I just replaced an entire engine on a Kawasaki mule. I forget the engine number.
The reason I replaced is because the previous owner had torn several holes in the air filter connecting hose and ran for how many years????
Anyway, is smoked pretty bad. That motor has well over 900 hours on it. Considered rebuilding but the machine work and parts would have been over $1500 so I found a new complete engine on line for $2100, so I bought it and put in and starts the coldest day we have in so Il without any jumping etc.
I would think these motors would go well over 3000 hours with proper maintenance etc.
God Bless
Jim
 
My JD F725 with v-twin liquid cooled Kawasaki has at least 1800 hours on it now. Still runs fine and does not burn any oil but every so often it puffs some smoke on a hot restart which I think may be valve guide seals ? It is an older model that had the plastic cam gear. That went bad a few years back and now has the steel gear. Not sure how long it will go ? I really like Kawasaki engines.
 
when had my shop going had three of them we called 25hr units straight out of crates new,only one made it past other two did not. in shop here we seen way more hours on briggs unit than anything else, still some in area with over 4000hours on them. who know on other engines cause many in the earlier times had no hour tracker installed. any engine is mechanical , so who really knows time frame all we went by was what seen in shop come and go and they were nothing special than any other
 
Personally I wouldn't buy a water cooled engine of the sort when air cooled work as well as they do. Zero maintenance with air cooled, except for a shroud removal and compressed air blowing out of the fins when you feel like it. I ran some of my later model air cooled engines really hard and afterwards, got out my non-contact Infrared Thermometer and the hottest temp I could find was 187F on the crankcase with the exhaust running 550F. Newer air cooled engines seem to run a lot of air.....detecting air flow in places around the engine that I don't recall it coming to my attention years ago.

Considering that current dino oils are starting to break down at 240F and some synthetics are said to run much higher temps, why would one want a liquid cooled engine?
 
Same here with the plastic cam gears - I got about 1200 hrs on the plastic gears. I also had to replace a head on mine. And it does smoke some when starting while its hot. But I really like it overall - had it since 1996 with about 1500 hrs on it. I asked the dealer about longevity and he told me 3K hours. Doubt I will live long enough to see if that is accurate.

Tim
 

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