Archive through March 01, 2013

[fcurrier]

Gaining a little more on the K341:

Piston, rings, and conn rod are installed. BBT brand, made in Taiwan, and will probably bite me in the end. Valves are lapped, installed and adjusted, as is its pretty, new crankcase breather cover. Almost didn't notice that the outer gasket had to be cut so it didn't block the brass fitting. Flywheel "T" and "S" marks are painted. Front and rear crankshaft seals are installed. It's been a little over 3 months since I took the valves out. I'm getting a bit antsy to have it run.

 

[jchamberlin]

Frank: Believe it or not, we're getting antsy too.

Seriously, it looks pretty!

 

[aaytay]

Frank-
Looking good there!

Wait.. trim outer gasket?? Arrrgh! I didn't catch that when I just installed mine last week!

<font size="-2">Does it really block that breather opening?</font>

 

[fcurrier]

Art: 'fraid so:

 

[aaytay]

 

[ljones]

Frank, is the piston, rod and rings aftermarket? How did the quality seam?

 

[fcurrier]

Lucas: As aftermarket as you can get, I think. Jury's out on their quality - I'm hoping for 100 hours runtime this summer and taking it down again next winter - if it makes it that far. I'll bet Dennis has some info on BBT?

 

[dfrisk]

FRANK - I've never even heard of BBT. I have used STENS before, in fact I'm using them in the K241 SON & I are building this weekend. I was ALWAYS a devoted OEM Kohler part user, but $200 for a piston & $100 for the rod is just stupid. Stens piston is $75. I guess they're trying to sell new engines by making rebuild parts prohibitively expensive, and it's kinda working, the after-market is getting the business.

I mean these things are NOT a Ferrari Formula 1 engine! I actually got to hold a piston/rod assembly from one of Michael Schumacher's race winning 2.4L V8 Ferrari's. Piston was about 4" dia. billet machined titanium rod, thin single ring on the piston. Whole assembly weighted a bit less than a Kohler piston. I was SO tempted to buy it for $400!

For 100 hours it should be O-K. The K321 I did a couple yrs ago didn't really get broke-in good till close to 100 hours. It had a +.010" Kohler piston & rings.

 

[fcurrier]

Quiet day on here. The resurfaced head came back during the week and got torqued on today:

I was surprised to see it beadblasted and painted. I know paint's a no-no but ain't it purty?
I used my new-to-me click torque wrench to bring the torque to 35fps. Checked my ancient beam torque wrench against it and the old beam wrench is right on the money.

 

[hydroharry]

Frank - looking nice there, getting pretty close. Say, I think the color of your head looks just about exactly like mine - you can just see a little bit in this pic. (dang archive bug)