Our newly acquired K301 has decided to test us

[Lux Man 1]

I posted the announcement of my son's first WH coming home yesterday. Today it decided to throw us a curve ball. Last night when we got it home it didn't run, turned out the previous owner had some wires reversed. Got hem straightened away and it started right up. The choke needed to be 1/2 on to stay running so my son drove it around the house and parked it. It may have only run 5-10 minutes max. Our plan today was to start it up till warm and change the oil and clean the carb, run Seafoam thru etc.but I'll be darned it would not start. All our heroic efforts produced near zero results. Here is what we did and what it does. We removed the carb and gave it a complete cleaning, cleaned points and set gap to .020", replaced spark plug, verified spark, verified compression (70psi while cranking- is this too low?) We have fuel inside the carb.,cleaned crank case vent.

Here is what it will do- the only time it will pop at all is at near zero throttle. It will fire about 3-4 times then quit, once in awhile, most of the time it doesn't fire at all. Choking does not help and opening the throttle does not help. I am actually questioning whether we are getting fuel into the combustion chamber because even with choking it, the plug hardly gets wet. Late tonight I did notice if I held my hand over the exhaust port it would send the pressure thru the carb- this seems wrong to me, unless it's because the exhaust valve is held open a small amount during start up. Our conclusion right now is to assume we either have too low of compression or a valve or valve are stuck open with carbon. I am reluctant to jump that far down the road but we spent allot of time trying all our tricks for next to nothing in return.

Our plan tomorrow will be to pull the head off and see what we find unless someone here sheds some light on our situation before we dig that far into it. We've fixed our fair share of engines but this one so far is puzzleing us, but maybe pulling the head will remove the mystery....

Thanks in advance

[groundhog47 347]

Am no expert by far but had sim problems: are you getting good gas flow out of fuel pump, is needle inside carb bowl releasing/falling and float level correctdown to let fuel in, did you clean all the tiny holes in carb. If you can get a supply hose try a gravity feed temporarily to feed gas to carb unless you verify pump ok. Take off air cleaner cover, try squirtin' gas directly into carb without choke and crank. Make sure you gas cap air vent isn't plugged, gas turned off, or filter plugged if have (or sediment bowl plugged at outlet. Today I just removed plug and poured in a small amount of gas directly in and pulled it over for a test and got about 20 0r more revs.

All this except gas cap happened to my 12horse C-120, every day for a couple weeks, the sneakiest goblin' was back laughin' , but I beat his @#+*. The needle valve stickin' in the inlet got me thrice b4 a new carb kit came in, meanwhile I left the key on inadvertintly and burnt the coil so as to only get an intermittent spark. Now if can only get the new (old) engine squared away, ha!

Hope this helps and someone with expertise will be along shortly so hold off a little longer 'fore tearin' down the head. And like Jim told me don't let it wip ya. Gerry

[CRE1992 135]

I posted the announcement of my son's first WH coming home yesterday. Today it decided to throw us a curve ball. Last night when we got it home it didn't run, turned out the previous owner had some wires reversed. Got hem straightened away and it started right up. The choke needed to be 1/2 on to stay running so my son drove it around the house and parked it. It may have only run 5-10 minutes max. Our plan today was to start it up till warm and change the oil and clean the carb, run Seafoam thru etc.but I'll be darned it would not start. All our heroic efforts produced near zero results. Here is what we did and what it does. We removed the carb and gave it a complete cleaning, cleaned points and set gap to .020", replaced spark plug, verified spark, verified compression (70psi while cranking- is this too low?) We have fuel inside the carb.,cleaned crank case vent.

Here is what it will do- the only time it will pop at all is at near zero throttle. It will fire about 3-4 times then quit, once in awhile, most of the time it doesn't fire at all. Choking does not help and opening the throttle does not help. I am actually questioning whether we are getting fuel into the combustion chamber because even with choking it, the plug hardly gets wet. Late tonight I did notice if I held my hand over the exhaust port it would send the pressure thru the carb- this seems wrong to me, unless it's because the exhaust valve is held open a small amount during start up. Our conclusion right now is to assume we either have too low of compression or a valve or valve are stuck open with carbon. I am reluctant to jump that far down the road but we spent allot of time trying all our tricks for next to nothing in return.

Our plan tomorrow will be to pull the head off and see what we find unless someone here sheds some light on our situation before we dig that far into it. We've fixed our fair share of engines but this one so far is puzzleing us, but maybe pulling the head will remove the mystery....

Thanks in advance

The Kohler engine has an ACR valve for easier starting. It releases the compression until it gets over a certain rpm. The only waynn to check the compression accurately is to spin the engine backwards as they wont open. Goodluck trying to do that lol. Your engines compression is most likely fine.

Do yourself a favor, go to autozone advanced auto etc.. and get a 1 gallon can of chem dip. It looks like carb cleaner in a paint can. The can itself is like $20-25 however it is cheaper than buying these stupid spray cans that make a mess and it last like 10 times longer. All you have to do is completely disassemble the carb and put it in the little basket provided in the chem dip can for 12-24 hours and the carb comes out looking like new. Then just add the rebuilt kit to it while you are putting it back together.

[rmaynard 14,897]

Check the fuel pump by removing the hose from the pump to the carburetor, aim the hose into a container, and have someone turn the engine over. You should get spurts of gas several inches long.

If the fuel pump is working, and you still have problems, get a can of starting fluid and spray it directly into the carburetor. If the engine starts, you have a carburetor problem. If not, use a spark checker to see if you actually have spark at the plug. Simple testers are available at most auto parts stores.

[SousaKerry 500]

I have started many a stubborn engine on carb cleaner and even WD-40. Be carefull with the ether good way to ruin a cylinder..

But I would take the head off and do a little investigation,

[Anglo Traction 759]

Sounds like there is still a Fuel issue or blockage, most likely in both High and Low Speed needles assuming you Preset them.

Did you check the Valve clearances when you had the Crankcase Breather out?.

Also, just setting the points to 20thou may not be accurate for the timing if any parts are worn. Can you see the 'S' in the Shroud apperture when you get the spark?.

I will have to endorse the removal of the Head irrespectively. For the sake of the price of a Gasket, it's always good to know what it's condition is with a newly aquired Engine/Tractor. A clean and setting of the Valves is also a real benefit.

Hope you solve the problem soon and you/your Son can enjoy it.

[c161rat 185]

I had a similar problem when I was first firing up the 161 after recently acquiring it. It acted like a fuel issue however ended up being a head gasket issue. If the gasket is faulty it wont allow for the proper suction needed to fill the cylinder with gas......Like my dad explained the four stroke engine to me when I was a kid.......suck...squish...bang ...fooey!!!!!!

[Lux Man 1]

Still no real good results. The fuel pump works great. When you try to start it there is plenty of fuel in the throat of the carb. We pulled the head, some carbon under there but no too bad. Cleaned it all up- the cylinder and the valves and replaced the gasket.

Even though we have spark I am not impressed by it's appearance. ( a real spark tester would be great to have some day) We did replace the condenser today but no change.

I did not know you could check the valve clearance thru the breather vent hole. We should get the manual but haven't yet.

I'm also not familiar with the comment about seeing the "s" in the shroud aperture when we get spark. Can you shed more specific light on that please?

What it will do now is start but it will only start at dead nuts idle. No throttle and no choke. It will run for 5- 10 seconds and quit- if we give it ANY throttle it will die immediately. My suspicions now have gone back to "spark". My theory is that the spark is weak and when we give it any throttle it floods out the weak spark. We ordered a new coil and it will be here in a few hours.

If there any other good ideas let me know- I do promise to conclude this thread successfully. A pet peeve of mine are threads that are never concluded properly.

[Lux Man 1]

BTW the compression did not change with the new head gasket, still 70psi. But we did take the opportunity to flatten the head a bit. We used a piece of 1/4" glass and 120 and 220 grit sand paper. Sanding in one direction and rotating the head 180 degrees periodically did a nice job.

There were some low spots but not anymore. The block also had a high spot in the middle that caused the head to rock a slight amount. I carefully flat filed it taking care to take off just enough and no more, the rock was gone when the head was put back on. This process has it's own set of risks but I feel what we did was not very aggressive at all and the risk was pretty minimal. The key is obviously not to take off any more than what is required to just achieve flatness.

[Lux Man 1]

Well- we installed the new coil and a vast improvement took place. It ran and we could increase the speed but it was running very rough. We had the points set at .020 so we increased them to .025 and it got worse so we went the other way. We then set them less and less, @ .010 it got worse again but @ .014 it ran the best, but still sounds like it is missing. I'll admit the points are pitted and the spark jumps around allot. I think a new set of points is in order and we'll see if that makes it purr like a kitten. I feel like we are 80-90% there. The young man went to bed tonight feeling a little better about his purchase.

I'll report back once we get the points.

[Lux Man 1]

Points did not help. We are now working on the carb again. I believe a carb kit is in order. We'll see after we get it. Joebob from this forum borrowed me one and it had a positive effect so I think we're headed in the right direction. As it looks right now we had at least two separate issues giving us problems, that always makes it more interesting. Btw, we did pull the flywheel nut to see if the key was sheared but it wasn't- if it had been it could have been a contributor since we were using the S mark on the flywheel for timing purposes.

[Cole 25]

An engine needs three things to run, fuel, spark, and compression, You said some of the wires where reversed, maybe that burnt out the coil, points, or condenser, (depends how long the key was left on with reversed wires). I'm not sure maybe Save Old Iron will come along and tell for sure.

[Lux Man 1]

As it turns out this engine had numerous little issues that all added up to make it not run in the beginning and then run run lousy when it finally did start. Here is the list in progression of what we found-

1) the wiring had 2 errors in it one kept it from running at all and the other made it run lousy- lesson --never assume anything-ever- about anything

2) the coil produced a weak spark causing it to fire but not continue to run. replacing the coil got it running.

3) The throttle shaft had too much side to side play - we installed a brass bushing from here. http://gardentractorpullingtips.com/carbfuel.htm#adjustfuelmixture you all probably know of this site but wow it is GREAT! and great people too.

4) replaced the main high speed needle in the carb. Ours was worn bent and something inside that would not dissolve.

These are the main items that got it purring again. We also replaced the condenser,push rod, points. and head gasket along the way. While it wasn't keeping it from running the head gasket did have a leak in it so it was good we pulled it and flattened the head and the top of the jug. We also re-set the valve clearances.

So this morning was the final test. It was 27 degrees here. It sat out all night and when I turned the key it started in 1 second.

A smooth running engine is a beautiful thing indeed!

[tunahead72 2,341]

A smooth running engine is a beautiful thing indeed!

Yes it is, especially after all the hard work you and your son put into it. Congratulations! :handgestures-thumbup:

[WheelHorse_of_course 99]

Congrats on a fine job! Will your son be using this for winter work?

[Lux Man 1]

I wouldn't call it work. He's pretty much playing with it everyday. We are however working on the snow thrower for it. Not that we need ti because we already have a snow thrower and his brother has a plow truck so it's pretty much for fun. It's nice though having a son who finds using a snow thrower a fun thing to do.

We pretty much just need the flag and the right sized bar and we'll be in business.