Tractors, Mowers, Chippers, Trailers, Chainsaws, Generators, Driveway Erosion Control, ETC.

I just started taking this 25 horsepower Kohler apart. pretty sure it needs head gaskets. Can't figure out where all the oil was coming cuz this is the cooling air intake side of the motor. I don't know why it's so oily.

It did run but it was really weezy. So I'm going to take it apart and assess from there. I got a lot of cleaning.

 

May be messy filler

 

I didn't even know this existed until I saw one go on FBM a while back when I was looking for a Mott. There is almost no information on these things on the web. Even Bush Hog fails to admit they made these and does not list them anywhere.

Fortunately I don't think there is much in the way of proprietary stuff on it, just gonna have to do some hunting for compatible parts, like the knives.

 

Please make it run and show what it can do.

 

It looks complete and while I feel like it is missing a belt tensioner, every pic I see of one online looks just like mine, so I guess watch your toes starting it and go is the order of the day with it.

Otherwise I am going to sharpen the knives and tinker with the motor on it and mow. I think it will work for my needs. I really like the simplicity of this thing, there is hardly anything to it when compared to a pull rotary type mower of comparable size.

I'll follow up on it when I get to it. Right now I got a giant Haban clogging up my garage and time.

 

Operation Playset Site Development​

My parents bought our daughter a 26x22 ft. Playset that is built onsite. So the wife and I spec’d out where we wanted to put it in order to work with other future building and road plans.

So I had my buddy come with his CAT 305e and knock over 24 of 30 poplar pine and sugar maple trees (88-94 feet tall) last Sunday before this past…then took off two days to cut and clear them.

So my dad called me Tuesday and said the company was planning to call me this week in order to schedule the build next week…haven’t heard from them of course.

So I quickly ordered 30yds of fill, aka clay, and went to making the playset area. Ordered another 15yds of fill, along with 20yds of playground mulch that is coming today.

I have enjoyed taking vacation days to play in the dirt ahead of what looks like wet weather coming up! Better to have the playset build area ready just in case they do come out next week without coordinating.

 

Picked up a new toy, er, I mean tool.

Pretty neat. It did show I had bad head gaskets. Showed the valves and the rings were in the acceptable range.

I found out where all the oil was coming from.

The oil cooler rubber lines were cracked. Just pulling the cooler away from the block and the lines broke right off.

 

Got around to cleaning this pig up.

Found the oil cooler lines from the filter housing were dry rotted and cracked. Replaced those as well as using some quality hose clamps.

Also found the breather tube from the crank case was split. Along with 2 blown head gaskets, this thing was throwing a huge amount of raw oil.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the cylinder s still showed the factory cross hatching. I'm guessing the thing used so much oil, the previous owner just kept topping it off with new oil.

The head gaskets were original. Kind of surprising for a 20 year old Kohler Command engine.

1 of the magnets inside the flywheel had delaminated. I put the whole thing in my grill and heated it to 400* and popped the other 5 off. Cleaned, degreased and epoxied them back into their original location.

11 hours to disassemble, clean and assemble.

Waiting on the magnet epoxy to cure then I can finish up putting it back together.

Pics to follow...

 

The magnet at the 1:00 position is loose. The rest, I'm sure are not far from letting go.

 

Before I put the flywheel on the grill, I mark each magnet with Roman numerals. Half of the number is on the FW and the other half is on the corresponding magnet. When epoxying the magnets, I just line up the paint marks.

Of course, the old glue, which is nothing more than double sided tape, must be scraped off. The FW and the magnets need degreased as well. I like using starting fluid. It's cheaper than brake clean.

 

Presently drying. The magnets pull themselves to the FW. I've never had a problem not using clamps or spacers. As long as you are close to your original paint pen marks, it will charge the battery just fine.

 

Love all these pictures and post you put together!

 

Thanks!

More to come.

 

When pulling things apart, I pulled the oil cooler away from the block. When I did that, both flexible lines broke right off!

It did make it easier to clean the cooler in the parts cleaning bucket, but I still needed to replace those lines.

I don't know if the dry rotted oil cooler lines were contributing to the oily mess on this motor, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were part of the problem. Regardless they needed changed. The craptastic original hose clamps were tossed as well.

 

11ish hours or cleaning and replacing bad parts.

2 blown head gaskets, broke oil cooler lines, 1 burnt out exhaust gasket, 2 coil wires with abraded shiething and the fuel pump vacuum line.

The muffler did not sound blown when I ran it 4 days ago, but when I removed it, it did have some rattling going on when I shook it. I'm not surprised. When the engine pushes raw oil into them, they usually aren't long for this world.

I was happy to confirm that the leakdown tester showed the piston/cylinders were in good shape. I was happy seeing the original cross hatching. Kind of impressin g for an engine with 1900 hours on it. I'm pretty sure it's the original engine. The chassis age matches the motor build date.

Before and after pics for comparison.

I hope to get it buttoned up Tuesday. Mondays are always busy.

 

Flywheel installed and coil gap set.

 

So my newer (2021) Honda mower started developing an oil leak on the bottom of the valve cover mid season last year. Well, sitting in the shed all winter it really dripped everywhere.



So, with grass mowing season quickly approaching I figure I better take care of it. Popped off the cover and there was very little sealant on it from factory.



So, cleaned it up the best I could and put a nice layer of Ultra Black on there. Hopefully that will solve the leak.

 

After installing and removing the shroud and various hardware 2X, I got the old gal back in the chassis.

Seems to run just fine. Burned all the old oil residue in the muffler out and she now runs smoke free.

Even though I changed nothing on the charging system except properly gluing in the magnets, she is putting out 14v at 2k RPMs. Doesn't hurt to double check.

I'm happy that it's running fine.

Next is to bush the deck and take some of the side to side slo p out of it.

 

Got some blading of the road done this last weekend. Man it gets bad in the winter. Only 7 homes on our private road but a couple of them like to haul ass through all the potholes and whatnot making the problem even worse. I suppose putting a crown on the road would be a huge help but I don't know that I can do that with my tractor alone.