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KC9KAS

Blew Up my C-160 Engine

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KC9KAS

We got 2 1/2 to 3 inches of fine dry snow overnight.

Got home from work, fired up the C-160 auto and headed out the garage door to work on the street in front of the house and the drive.

Plowed about 400' of street and it just died. The crank was spinning fast and slowly came to a stop.

I tried to re-start it and it spins very fast & easy!

Got the B-80 with weighted tires and chains, tow strap and my wife to drag it back into the garage.

Didn't have time to check it out....Hey, light bulb just came on.......Maybe the automatic compression release is stuck open! Or it just broke the rod.

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JERSEYHAWG /  Glenn

Whatever it is, I hope it's simple. Best of luck.

We have our first good snowstorm of the year coming in this weekend. Months back I sold my jeep / plow combo. Sold my walk behind I had for 14 years. It's down to the 416-8.  Don't have the 5Xi set up. Trust me, I thought about some crazy thing like that. 

Keep us posted and best of luck sir.

 

Glenn

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Racinbob

Now that there needs to be posted in the "Why do you guys have so many Wheel Horses" thread. :lol:

 

Hope it's simple too.

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KC9KAS
6 minutes ago, Racinbob said:

Now that there needs to be posted in the "Why do you guys have so many Wheel Horses" thread. :lol:

 

That is what I was thinking as I pulled it back to the garage!

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leeave96

Is it possible you've just lost the spark?  Wire from the coil to the plug or perhaps wet points?

 

just a thought.

 

Bill

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KC9KAS
1 minute ago, leeave96 said:

Is it possible you've just lost the spark?  Wire from the coil to the plug or perhaps wet points?

 

just a thought.

 

Bill

I wish....No the engine turns (by hand) very easy!

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leeave96
2 minutes ago, KC9KAS said:

I wish....No the engine turns (by hand) very easy!

 

Thinking glass half full - the engine should have decompression and as such would turn freely.

 

just a thought.

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KC9KAS
1 hour ago, KC9KAS said:

We got 2 1/2 to 3 inches of fine dry snow overnight.

Got home from work, fired up the C-160 auto and headed out the garage door to work on the street in front of the house and the drive.

Plowed about 400' of street and it just died. The crank was spinning fast and slowly came to a stop.

I tried to re-start it and it spins very fast & easy!

Got the B-80 with weighted tires and chains, tow strap and my wife to drag it back into the garage.

Didn't have time to check it out....Hey, light bulb just came on.......Maybe the automatic compression release is stuck open! Or it just broke the rod.

@leeave96

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953 nut

Hate to say it but it isn't the ACR, it is only reducing the compression, not eliminating it, though I'm sure you know that by now. So long as the rod didn't knock out the side of the crank case it isn't too bad a job to replace the rod and piston. Chances are that if it wasn't burning oil and ran strong all you will need is the standard rebuild kit.

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prondzy

Sorry to hear the bad news. The interesting story made me want to click the LIKE button, but it seemed inappropriate considering you horses heart just blew up :auto-ambulance:

I'll keep hoping for the best that is something simple.

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squonk

Rod. Even with the comp release stuck you still would get drag from the piston on the cly. walls.

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tractorhogg

It might need a standard kit or it might not. When repairing internals it is ALWAYS advised to mic the cylinder wall at the top, middle, and bottom of the stroke to look for out-of-roundness or taper. Not doing so will result in serious dependability issues due to incomplete repair

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Marv

Mostly happens in the hot summer but is possible you have an exhaust valve stuck open.

Marvin

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js5020

When I got the 16 Auto it had a multi piece piston, 4 pieces to be exact and it was running fine up till she quit and spun to a stop.  I have heard of several K341s the the piston has come apart.

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Molon_Labe

To give you a glimmer of hope, I had the same symptoms with my c-161 last winter and found this when I pulled the head...

56a04b2142a72_SAM_0286(2).thumb.JPG.baf0

 

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arrkerr

Sounds to me like you snapped the rod.  Easy test would be to pull the spark plug out, put the end of a long screw driver in and you should hit the top of the piston.  Then turn the engine over and see if it moves up and down.  My money is on it not.  Had the same thing happening when plowing in my old C-85... still have the block in the garage, easily repairable but in my case it wasn't worth it for an 8hp.  Yours would be.  Hopefully it just needs a bore and new piston and rod and didn't do any damage to the crank.

 

js5020 might be able to answer better than I, but I would expect that you would be able to tell easily too if the piston had come apart.

 

Pulling the head off should be relatively easy too to look further, the only real PITA is getting the air shroud off, especially the bolts at the bottom.  And of course you'd need a torque wrench to put it back on if you were to do it yourself, but chances are you're going to be taking the block apart or shipping it off for repair.

 

Really sorry :(  Personally I hope you are able to repair it and keep it original, vs. doing an engine swap.  On the plus side you'll end up with a like-new motor when you're done.  I've been able to get it done reasonably cheaply by sending out the top end to have it bored, the one thing I can't really do in my garage (haven't had to on my WH, but a similar situation).

I'm curious if you checked the oil before you started it up?  I don't know about yours, but in my similar situation years ago my 8hp had a weird tendency to be completely fine for a month and then it'd somehow manage to get really low on a normal mow, then be fine again.  When the rod snapped I was in a hurry and skipped my typical pre-start oil check.  Learned my lesson right then and there.  The old 8hp didn't have a dipstick - thats my excuse :)

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js5020

This is what my blown piston looked like,

 

IMG_3001_zps0fa577f6.jpg

 

IMG_3003_zpsf74863c0.jpg

 

This was a good thing for me, its how I got the tractor.  The previous owner didnt want to mess with it.  I checked the bore it was within spec so I put a new rod, piston, and rings, honed it a bit and busted out the grenade gears 2 winters ago still runs like a top, always starts and uses no oil.

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Ed Kennell

Broken rod.  Hope the crank is OK.    Here's what I found in the free spinning 875 I bought.  All it took was the new rod.  Crank and piston were OK.

 

IMG_4589.thumb.JPG.3e027512736b2ac97fac4

 

Good luck.

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squonk
5 hours ago, js5020 said:

This is what my blown piston looked like,

 

IMG_3001_zps0fa577f6.jpg

 

IMG_3003_zpsf74863c0.jpg

 

This was a good thing for me, its how I got the tractor.  The previous owner didnt want to mess with it.  I checked the bore it was within spec so I put a new rod, piston, and rings, honed it a bit and busted out the grenade gears 2 winters ago still runs like a top, always starts and uses no oil.

Man that brings back memories. It looks like an Olds diesel piston! :omg:

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Pullstart
4 hours ago, squonk said:

Man that brings back memories. It looks like an Olds diesel piston! :omg:

 I had an Olds Delta 88 diesel, loved that car!  Never understood why it had such a bad wrap... Probably that I had the only good running one they built!  Still wish I wouldn't have sold that tank, clocked 45 mph in the quarter mile and could haul a 350 or dana 60 in the trunk!

 

15 hours ago, KC9KAS said:

The crank was spinning fast and slowly came to a stop.

I tried to re-start it and it spins very fast & easy!

 

Maybe you're just out of gas and you have acquired a massive set of arms piloting your :wh: in the snow?  Now there's looking on the bright side! :handgestures-thumbupright:

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953 nut
14 hours ago, tractorhogg said:

It might need a standard kit or it might not. When repairing internals it is ALWAYS advised to mic the cylinder wall at the top, middle, and bottom of the stroke to look for out-of-roundness or taper. Not doing so will result in serious dependability issues due to incomplete repair

 An easy way to check cylinder condition is to take your rings off the piston and insert the compression ring in the cylinder then square it up by inserting the piston, measure the ring end gap; now push it half way down using the piston to be sure it is squared up and measure again as well as looking for any gaps around the ring; repeat at the bottom of the stroke. The is a simple way of checking the condition of your cylinder with simple tools (a set of feeler gauges). Shade-tree mechanics have used this technique for years because it works.

 

I would presume that a strong running engine that didn't knock and wasn't burning oil will probably have a good cylinder if the broken rod/piston didn't do any damage. 

13 hours ago, Molon_Labe said:

found this when I pulled the head...

What the heck is that item wedging the valve open and how did it get there?

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arrkerr
7 minutes ago, 953 nut said:

I would presume that a strong running engine that didn't knock and wasn't burning oil will probably have a good cylinder if the broken rod/piston didn't do any damage. 

 

I'd imagine it is very unlikely that a rod would snap though if the piston hadn't frozen in the cylinder due to lack of lubrication.

 

Nice tip for checking the piston condition, I'm actually going to try that tonight on another block I've got.

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953 nut
52 minutes ago, arrkerr said:

I'd imagine it is very unlikely that a rod would snap though if the piston hadn't frozen in the cylinder

I had one snap a rod bolt while I was doing a little grading work at about half throttle, no knock or any other warning signs; just quit running. When I cranked it over it spun very freely with a slight knock, piston had ended up at TDC and the crank was bumping the rod as it went by.

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Molon_Labe
1 hour ago, 953 nut said:

 An easy way to check cylinder condition is to take your rings off the piston and insert the compression ring in the cylinder then square it up by inserting the piston, measure the ring end gap; now push it half way down using the piston to be sure it is squared up and measure again as well as looking for any gaps around the ring; repeat at the bottom of the stroke. The is a simple way of checking the condition of your cylinder with simple tools (a set of feeler gauges). Shade-tree mechanics have used this technique for years because it works.

 

I would presume that a strong running engine that didn't knock and wasn't burning oil will probably have a good cylinder if the broken rod/piston didn't do any damage. 

What the heck is that item wedging the valve open and how did it get there?

It's a 1/4-20 nut! During the summer I had changed the air cleaner element and pre-filter and honestly have no idea how it got in there but it had rattled around for a ling time as you can see by the rounded off shoulders before being spit out. My guess is that it had been there for as long as I've had the tractor.

 

SAM_0290 (2).JPG

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Rob R

Me thinks stuck valve or broken connecting rod (as someone mentioned pull the plug put a soda straw in the plug hole turn the engine over by hand see it goes up and down). P.S.  If I was the rod you would heard a definite bang..... hopefully you had the correct amount of oil in the sump...... also chk the shroud for a mouse nest which would cause the engine to overheat and the exhaust valve to stick.   Hope this helps.  

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