Ot: small engines today.

When I was a kid I loved tinkering with small engines, Briggs
and strattons from the 70s-80s were my favorite. Years later I
still bought them, some were called Intek I had 3 of them and
there all junk, need to run with the choke on, plastic cams ect,
I've had $400 dollar Hondas, one the valve guide came loose
and droped down on. So I opted for the cheapest junk I could
find for my mower vacuum system. I found these china freight
engines for $99.00 and with a coupon you get 10% off and a
free survival kit complete with woodstove knife and axe! Lol.
Well this one ran great for about 6 months, then it started to
run rough blow black smoke and stall. I thought it was running
out of fuel at first, then I realized it was like the choke was on
flooding the engine. What I found was this vent line went from
the gas tank to the carb, an emissions thing I gues?? I
disconnected it and ran the engine today, it ran fine all day! I
saw gas dripping out of it during the day, so it made me think it
must have been dumping to much gas into the carb and
flooding the engine! The two things I learned was, I should
have bought the mower with a kubota diesel, and I should
have got the ultra vac bagger system which has runs off the
mower deck, the mower has 3709 hours on it, and is on it's 3rd
kohler command at $1800 a pop, the Diesel would have paid
for itself by now! Lol

Hey,Jay,
Where do you find the fans? I'd like to make one for my mower too.

It's called trac vac, they make impellers to put on a 3/4 inch or 1 inch crankshaft Engine. They also make the blower housing. Ect.

Methinks if I'd paid a whole lot of money for a fancy lawn mower and the engine junked itself there wouldn't have been a 2nd engine put on, much less a 3rd!

Where do you get your engines?

From dealers, but this one came from harbor freight!

I don't think u understand my post? The mower itself has 3700
hours on it, it's the Engines that are the problem.

Made this out 20 years ago of a junk 8hp blower, a $50 lawn cart and a used Wisconsin that burns a pint of oil to 2 gallons of gas. Have mounted it on 3 different tractors and it still does my leaves every year. The most expensive part ($100) was the trak vac adapter for the Kubota deck.

Just wondering on those Kohlers that seems kinda short lived to me ?
What goes wrong with them and what have you tried to make them live longer ? ie; synthetic oil help any ? I tried it in mine once and it made it start smokeing more.
I have a kawasaki 25hp v twin water cooled.I think it has around 1700 hours now ? only problem was the plastic cam gear a few years ago and the new one was steel. I use rotella 15W40 and it doesn't use any between oil changes. Every once in awhile it will puff smoke at a warm start up. I'm guessing valve guide seals should be replaced.

(quoted from post at 07:15:42 10/11/13) I don't think u understand my post? The mower itself has 3700
hours on it, it's the Engines that are the problem.

Click to expand...

The mower has an engine you've replaced 3x? What did I miss?

My complaint was about the engine not the mower. I like the
mower but not the engine choice I made. I should have got the
kubota diesels. I can't explain it any simpler.

The first one had 1700 hours on it and the crank gear that runs the camshaft split. There not keyed there pressed on. Put in a new crank and the cam must have skipped a tooth and ruined it again. The only thing the dealer mechanic could figure was because there's no bearings in the engine it wore enought to become miss aligned. The second one had 1500 hours so I just replaced it while it was still running, $500 on Craigslist. Third one only has 300 or so hours on it, but now kohler at least put a bearing on the pto side of the crankshaft. Lotta good that will do.

(quoted from post at 16:11:27 10/11/13) My complaint was about the engine not the mower. I like the
mower but not the engine choice I made. I should have got the
kubota diesels. I can't explain it any simpler.

Click to expand...

Okay, I gotcha I think. My point is, if the mower manufacturer uses junk engines, why should you have to keep replacing them? That thing looks like it must cost $3-5K anyway, does it make sense to stick with a company that wants another $500-1500.00 for a real engine? I understand you wish you'd spent it in the first place, but why add insult to injury so to speak over and over again?

Hey, none of my business really. No offense intended, I just think differently than other folks I guess. Sorry you've had bad luck with it at all.

Thanks alot. They also have Kawasaki engines too. That
mower is a commercial mower was $8900 in 2005, now the
same or updated mowers are $12000, with out the vacuume
system! But that's how I make my living, using these mowers 5
days a week in the past.

I often read of people talking of "plastic" cams in newer small engines.I've not had a reason to go inside a small engine in years. Do they really have "plastic" cams or just "plastic" cam gears?

Check out smallenginewarehouse.com for you next Kohler.

Yes that's were I got my last one from.

The whole cam was plastic in my 6.5 hp Briggs's. I also had a
Honda water pump with a plastic cam, it wore out under
warranty and was replaced. Just a bunch of junk nowadays.

I have a 20 hp command horizontal shaft about 1500 hrs. It's still good. I checked out small engine's price was around $1200. Most other places they are around $1800