My Raider 10 will soon live again : )

[Stigian 1,234]

Afternoon/evening all, at long last its looking like my Raider 10 will be back to life over the next couple of days

Yep, the new piston rings and full-ish (hhmm not quite full) gasket set has arrived.

The first job of "operation where does this part go?" was to replace the rings. Not a job i was looking forward to doing for a couple of reasons.

1. After what felt like a very long wait for the parts, i didnt want to break any rings putting them on the pistons.

2. Ive never change rings before

Sorry for the lack of pics of the rings going in, but the good news is all went well and i only broke one of the old rings taking it off

The new rings on the piston were a tight fit down the barrel, but it all went well with loads of oil to help it in

Now for some pic's

8 out of 10 Garry's prefer using genuine Kohler gaskets

Its a shame that the all the gaskets were not the right ones

Here's the sump pan gasket.

Anyone any ideas where these might go

Anyway, not one to let a bit of paper get in the way of fun, a new sump pan gasket was soon knocked up

Turning the engine up the right way the next problem soon showed its ugly face

After lots of swearing/smoking/drinking a nice calming cup of coffee, i vowed never to use the same parts man again. Oh i also had a rummage through my parts boxes and found a used but very usable head gasket

Thats enough moaning, alls well that ends well so the saying goes.

The engine is now sitting on the raiders rails awaiting bolting down and all the tinwork etc bolting in place.

All being well the old girl should be back to life tomorrow

A big thank you to Wes for providing me with torque settings over the phone

And a second big thank you to Garry for all your help and holding bits up for photo's :)

[520HC 208]

Those funny shaped round-like gaskets go behind your bearing plate to get the correct end play on your crankshaft,BUT if you did not have the crank out you won't need them. newbie Ron

[KyBlue 655]

Ahhh In the famous words of Hannibal Smith ... I love it when a Plan comes together!! Even if you did have a couple snags along the way. Be a good feelin when ya get it goin.

[Stigian 1,234]

Those funny shaped round-like gaskets go behind your bearing plate to get the correct end play on your crankshaft,BUT if you did not have the crank out you won't need them.

Thanks for info Ron Oh as well :D

[glenn27 71]

Run that Kohler for 20 mins. or so--let it cool down and then re-torque the bolts in the same sequence--then do it again in a couple hours run time.....You'll be surprised how much you can snug them again---

[T-Mo-(Moderator) 4,610]

Ian,

It looks like it's coming together. Gotta love the genuine Kohler parts. :thumbs:

[Stigian 1,234]

A question for you fine folk out there in WH land

Piston rings for this 10hp K241 engine, size wise should they be 3.250 x .0935 or

3.250 x .1875 :thumbs:

[TT-(Moderator) 1,162]

Ian,

The thinner (narrower) rings are for the newer-style Mahle piston. (short skirt)

The thicker rings are for the standard Kohler piston (long skirt) and is probably what your engine would have.

Mahle & original-style parts don't interchange, so the rod & piston must be used together as a "set". The Mahle piston has a rectangular indent on each side where the wrist pin locks are installed. I am postitive that the wrist pin is also shorter.

The Mahle rod should have studs with nuts, and the Kohler rod will probably have hex head bolts.

Hopefully all of my "blah-blah-blah" helped you out. :thumbs:

[Stigian 1,234]

Cheers TT, your " blah blah blah" has helped a lot

Ok folks here's the story so far.

Bolted the engine down in the frame yesterday, fitted all the carb, muffler etc, lobbed some fuel and a battery in, and turned the key hoping for the best

Thunk went the engine as the whole thing locked up on the starter

Hmmm ing time.

The head came off and all looked well with the bore.

Tinwork off next, turn of the key again, Thunk. hhmm.. why wont this starter turn the engine over

With the starter motor taken off i could turn the engine by hand, although it was a bit tight.

Now, when the new rings went in the engine was a bit tight to turn over by hand, but me being a newbie to putting in rings thought it was just the new rings making it a bit tight and they would soon bed in

At that point one of those "close the doors and walk away" kinda moments happened, so thats what i did.

Anyway, so here i was sitting at the pc last night thinking "did i check the labels on the ring packets"

A quick trip down the workshack and back showed i should of checked the labels

Top and second groove, 3.250 x .0935

Bottom groove 3.250 x .1875

:wtf: :wtf:

So let this be a warning to you Uk chaps out there, stay away from a well-ish known Howard rotovator specalist from down south sort of way if your in need of Kohler parts :D

[TT-(Moderator) 1,162]

Ian, was the bottom (oil control) ring one piece, or three?

If it was a one piece ring, it should be the correct set for your Raider engine. The Mahle style uses a 3 piece oil control ring set - a corrugated stainless steel "spreader" with two very thin outer rings.

Did you happen to insert one of the new compression rings into the cylinder bore before you installed them on the piston? (I always flip the piston upside-down and use it to squarely push the ring about 1 inch into the cylinder.) There should be a space between the ends of the ring that can be "adjusted" by careful filing of one end. (file straight in from the face of the ring toward the center, and deburr when the adequate clearance is set. There is actually a "machine" for grinding the ring end gap clearance, but most folks don't have one.) Since it's early here and my brain isn't fully awake , I'm going to say the end gap should be around .008" to .020" on your Kohler. (naturally, it will be more with a "worn-in" cylinder than in a new or freshly rebored engine)

If the ring end gap is within specs, and you oiled and didn't overtorque the big end of the connecting rod, your engine should turn over by hand, but you'll feel the "drag" of the new rings.

Keep us posted! :thumbs:

[Stigian 1,234]

Sorry about the bit of a rant above, but i do get a tad annoyed when i have to wait weeks for parts only to find they are the wrong when they get here

Anyway, im feeling a tad happier about the engine now.

The bottom ring is a 3 piece one TT, so its not quite the right one for the engine.

The good news is i found out the main reason why the engine was so tight to turn by hand.

Bits of a shameful reason

er... the piston was in the wrong way round

Thats to say the rod end cap was in right, its just the piston and the rest of the rod was wrong

Oh well, live and learn as they say

The even better news is the engine turns over by hand quite well now

Im not quite sure running the engine with the wrong oil control rings in, is quite the right way to go, but as the rings do seem a very nice fit in the piston im going to give it a bash and see what happens...

[Stigian 1,234]

Good morning Guys,

in the spirit of keep this up to date here's yesterdays news today

After a morning of bolting bits on to the engine, and then taking them back off because i forgot the "bolting the bits on" order , the old Raider is almost back to life

After a false start with a non working fuel pump (the original one leaked so it was swapped out with another one, only to have to swap them back again with leak fixed)

the engine coughed it way into life.

It will only run a bit on the lumpy side for about 30sec's, but im sure a play with the carb settings will sort it out.

The bad news is the started motor is still sticking on the ring gear <_<

Quite why i didnt clean up the ring gear teeth while the engine was on the bench, i have no idea , but its the first job on my hit list this morning

You never know, by the end of the day the ol Raider may well be making its way around the garden under its own power

A moment ive been dreaming of for quite a while now :D

[T-Mo-(Moderator) 4,610]

Ian,

After I rebuilt my K321 in my C-141, my starter also was sticking. But after a little lubricant and a few starts, that isn't a problem anymore. :whistle:

[Stigian 1,234]

Cheers for that Terry

But would you believe after spending and hour odd cleaning up all the teeth on the ring gear the starter is still sticking even with loads of lube

Im starting to wonder if the engine is a bit to tight for the starter to cope with it

Anyway, the old girl ran for more than 30 secs today

With a helping jump start from the 312 the engine coughed and spluttered into life but soon settled down to a smooth-ish idle

The trouble is at anything more than i fast idle the engine coughs its little heart out..

ah, bless

The carb was set as it says in the online kohler manual and adjusting the main mixture screw didnt seem to make any difference

Could it be anything else other than the carb thats causing problem?

Answers on a postcard please

Have a watch of the vid and see what you all think, any help in getting this engine running properly would be mucho welcome

[TT-(Moderator) 1,162]

the starter is still sticking even with loads of lube

The trouble is at anything more than i fast idle the engine coughs its little heart out..

Could it be anything else other than the carb thats causing problem?

Answers on a postcard please

Ian,

Take the starter off, clean all traces of oil, grease, and any other kind of gooey stuff off of everything. Get some powdered graphite and put a little on the "spiral" on the starter shaft. Unless there's another problem, that should cure the sticky starter drive.

As for the coughing above idle -- try closing the gap up a little on the points. If you're REAL careful, you can do this with the engine running. (so you can check the throttle response as you adjust the points.)

[Stigian 1,234]

A quick update, after playing with the points the engine is running a bit better at higher speeds though its by no means running right yet.

Checking the valve gaps is the next on the hit list to try.

But the good nes is now the rings have bedded in a bit the engine is much freer turning, oh and the starter has given up sticking now it has a much freer engine to turn over :whistle:

[Mith 2]

Ian, have you cleaned out the jets in the carb. If the high speed jets were blocked it would start to stall as the revs increased I reckon.

[Stigian 1,234]

Its official, im now very pished off with this bloody engine.

Checked the tappet gaps yesterday, they had closed up a tad but were soon sorted.

Fired the engine up, it sounded ok ticking over.

gave it a bit of throttle and it didnt want to know.

Shut the throttle off and the engine stopped dead and locked itself up big time

That was the point i started thinking about getting the engine running in the 71 Raider and swapping Wheel Horse hearts

Oh, and yes the jets in the carb are clean Jim :dunno:

[Stigian 1,234]

Its time to close the chapter on this troublesome engine

I pulled the head off yesterday to find no movement at all in the piston rings

You might say its a bit tight as it took a lot of WD40 and a scaffold pole on the end of a wrench to get the engine to turn, and then only turn with a lot of pressure on the pole/wrench extension

After spending what must be a year on getting the Raider looking good and ready for use, the engine has always stopped the planned Raider driving fun from happening.

So, ive had enough of this blasted engine, had enough of waisting both time and money

on it only for it to reward me with more problems

But fear not, i do have a plan

An engine swapping plan

But not with the 10hp out of my 71 Raider

Time to start a new topic in the right section of this fine forum :)