c161rat 185 #1 Posted July 16, 2012 I was trying to help my neighbor out with his Craftsman tractor. I thought the float might have been sticking. Here are the symptoms. Tractor runs fine when cold and not under load but once it warms up it gives symptoms like its loading up and then starts belching white smoke and stalls.....I did check the carb and float and they are both fine. Its a later model Kohler 17 horse? single vert shaft overhead valve. I really didnt want to rip further into this thing until I had some advise......I was leaning towards bad valve seal or possibly cracked ring but he is not sure if its either one he wants to spend the money on parts or my labor......The funny thing is that when its not worked the motor sounds great.....No tick or knock and smooth idle. the only other thing i could think of is that there is some sort of crankcase breather that i am overlooking. It almost seems to me that the crankcase is building up pressure and then releasing it with oil into the combustion chamber. Just wondering if anyone else has any experience with this type of problem........ Thanks for the help guys, Joe Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sparky-(Admin) 23,156 #2 Posted July 16, 2012 I thought the float might have been sticking. the only other thing i could think of is that there is some sort of crankcase breather that i am overlooking. It almost seems to me that the crankcase is building up pressure and then releasing it with oil into the combustion chambe Could the float have stuck and dumped some gas into the crankcase, making it "overfull". Maybe you dislodged the float checking it and its fine now but the overfull situation is still there ? Justa wild guess of course. Mike............. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
c161rat 185 #3 Posted July 16, 2012 Mike, I thought the same thing and there was a little debris in the needle and seat however the crankcase oil level was right where it should be. Its really got me scratching my head............. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jay in nc 210 #4 Posted July 16, 2012 mh kohler 17 ohv. on my craftsman lt 1000 broke the carb throttle shaft at one of the butterfly screws and it ate that screw, it bounced around in the bore an scored the crap out of it. that was in 2004, put a new carb on it an have been running it ever sence. uses some oil smokes some an every so often i have to sandblast the spark plug. it sounds like you have a carb - dirt problem or a partly fouled plug Jay Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
