Archive through August 11, 2010

[dtanner]

Kevin H
(.I do not believe in running abrasives of any kind through an engine..)

All I can say to that is water(mist) is not an abrasive no more than MMO is. All the water does is shock the carbon from the quick temp change and that causes it to be blown from the engine.A rag over the exhaust and you will see the carbon. Just my .02
I did not know that someone built a Cummins that cost that much lol

 

[kphill]

Donald, You say the carbon is blown from the engine?..It is blown through the engine. And the engines we build are not for highway use..Way too big.,.

 

[sblunier]

Kraig, Rob,

Technically, the mule drives are different as well. The 44/50 mule drive uses offset idler pulleys to make up for the offcenter main drive pulley of the 44/50 deck.

The 38/42/48 decks use mule drive idlers that are straight due to the centerline mounting of the main mower drive pulley.

The mule drives can be easily distinguished by the tension spring (Item 5 below) The mule dirves on the 44/50 used a coil spring with long ears that was threaded over the QA hook rod, and had a "tension gauge" bent in the shape of a "J" that passed through the front of the mule drive.

 

[dfrisk]

DONALD, KEVIN - I had a BIG old Post all typed out but it was too big for the forum....and I'm NOT typing it all back out again.

KEVIN - if I had to guess, I'd say you build locomotive engines? I know CAT's big engine plant is in Lafayette, IN, but that'd be to long of a commute for you to get to work. You may have seen a couple posts a few days back by WYATT COMPTON. He was a design Engineer at Waukesha Engine Div. of Dresser Ind. a few years ago. They make some pretty impressive engines too! He was telling Me one day about the oil-cooled piston ring lands they had in one series of engines. Not just oil jets shooting oil on the underside of the pistons, but cooled & filtered oil PUMPED thru the conn. rods, into the wrist pins, then circulated thru machined passages IN the pistons.

Oh, And Donald's correct, the carbon deposits fly OUT of the muffler in CHUNKS when you spray water into an engine with combustion chamber deposits. There's never any liquid water in the combustion chamber, it vaporizes into steam almost immediately. And the airflow thru the engine keeps all the chunks in suspension. Almost zero chance of getting chunks between the piston & bore. And if something did get in that gap, the piston is swiping over the cyl. wall twenty-five times a second @ 1500 RPM, and the inertia of the sudden stop at TDC would expel the chuck. NOTHING abrasive ever enters the engine, but I suppose you could make the argument that something already THERE that could be abrasive is Leaving the engine. The K241 I injected water into the bore looked perfect even after 1400 hours, I could still see cross-hatch in the bore and not even a ridge at the top of the bore.

Really old idea actually, water injection was used in kerosene ag tractor engines back in the 1910's/1920's. Tractor pullers still use it a lot. Saw a tech segment on Nat'l Tractor Pulling on RFD TV a couple weeks ago a diesel super-stock pulling tractor based off an Allis-Chalmers D-21 (426 cid) used four quarts of #2 diesel fuel and TEN QUARTS of water during a 300 ft pull. He injected water between each of the three turbos, after the last turbo, and into each of the six intake ports in the head.

Also, don't agree with needless head gasket replacement at all. The K241 I rebuilt in 1985 ran 1400 hours in twenty years on the same head gasket. I had to re-torque it 2-3 times but it's too easy to tell if the head gasket is leaking on a Kohler to just replace them because they may be leaking. Just make sure the head is flat as per Matt G's write-up, chase & chamfer the head bolt holes, check the head to the block to make sure the block is flat, torque the head in three easy steps, run for 15-30 minutes, re-torque again and DONE!

 

[kphill]

Dennis, You guess is correct..And we have to work in extremely clean conditions so any kind of abrasive is a big problem..The reason I like MMO as apposed to the water is that the engines I ran MMO thru I found that is softened the carbon and it seemed to allow it to go thru without the sharpness and the water breaks it away and leaves it more abrasive than the MMO..I could be wrong but it seems to me like it is..But hey, Thats what is nice about conflicting ideas..Sometimes the truth lies in the middle..lol

 

[lpalma]

The last couple of post on decarbonizing( $2.00 word) was interesting.I run MMO in all my kohlers to keep the maintenance issues to a minimum.
I think this regulator is done regulating.

Here are some pix of the 3 cubs I promised.
Two 71's and One 70.One has funky fenders on it,The other had IH ones on it,

the 70 is the 280th one built,It has the early thin axle and the cut out on the cover plate on the trans..don't know why it is there,Maybe someone else knows....
They all run,took two days to get them back in working order,all the carbs had to be replaced with rebuilt ones I had,all the fuel bowls were crapped up,all the head gaskets were blown,and all the clutches were froze up.At least the PTO's were still in working order and the decks are pretty quiet considering the age of them.I think a belt sander works the best decarbonizing the piston,Hehehehe.
Enjoy,

 

[kide]

A further comment on the backfiring (we'll skip my usual..) The upward tilt of the muffler towards the exhaust end has got to be a contributing factor as to why there is usually a short duration of quiet before the pop - the hot gas mixture doesn't ignite until enough air is vented back into the muffler to lean it out a little, then it ignites. (PULL!!)

The decarbonizing drill as described by Dennis is what SeaFoam recommends, except using their product, not water - and it does work, and you don't want to stand in line with the exhaust when you're doing it..

 

[dtanner]

Lewis Palma

I kind a like them fenders lol.I got an invite today to go to an auction on the 21th .I do want to see what this item will sell for. Guys any ideas?

The Mott is in great shape but has not run since 1981.I would think that a carb rebuild will be in order for sure. Lets see if I can bring that home with me just because lol

 

[dfrisk]

KEVIN - When I worked at FARMALL, the hydro transmissions were assembled in "The White Room", typical Hospital White Room conditions. The assemblers didn't wear surgical suits but did wear lab coats, gloves, and had to have something covering their hair & beards/mustaches. And of course, safety glasses. Limited access room, in almost five years I managed to sneek inside ONCE when I followed a Foreman of the dept. I was a production scheduler of to look at something. I did get some dirty looks however. So I know about cleanliness.

I could see running MMO before using the water injection method to de-carbon a combustion chamber. But like I said, I don't use MMO so haven't tried it.

I'm REALLY fussy about any dirt or abrasives around engines. Especially something like a K-series Kohler without any kind of oil filter.

GERRY - It's surprising what you see fly out of mufflers sometimes. I could never understand why IH had "Spark Arrestors" as an option for their ag tractors. One night Dad & I were out doing chores in the hog pasture and we were moving some hog houses, feeders, and water tanks. The old '39 H was grunting pretty good trying to move what we were pulling. And about every 30-40 seconds a glowing spark would fly out the muffler up in the air another 10-12 feet, then drift down and almost hit the ground before it'd stop glowing. THEN I understood the need for spark arrestors.

 

[dfrisk]

DONALD - That Mott will either bring crazy HIGH money, or sell really cheap. You may be able to get it for $50 to $100, or it'll bring over $500.

They really do a nice job mowing rough over-grown areas. I'd suggest pulling it with something with a creeper gear or a Hydro. They do take a bit of HP to run, more than a rotary mower IMHO.