What happend here?

[krazy_horse 59]

I replaced the head gasket on my K-181 a couple of weeks ago. The engine has a .10 over piston and the cylinder bore looked glazed with very little cross hatch but no scuffing either. I try to be clean and thorough when I do work on these engines. This engine ran good and never smoked. I used carb cleaner with a brass brush to clean the old girl, new head gasket (Stines) and new grade 8 bolts. I cleaned the bore and piston top good then put a couple spoons of 30 wt. into the rings and bore. It runs good now that it is back togother but smokes more than my Hippie Cousin. I have let this go through three heat cycles and retorqued the head and it is still smoking. I replaced the gasket because oil was seeping on the rt. side fins. Do you think I need to pull it back down, hone and re- ring? After thinking about this I will pull and clean the breather. Strange she started smoking after a head gasket tho.

[MarkPalmer 81]

Is it smoking just at startup or continuously? The only thing I can think of is if there was oil leaking from the head gasket before, there had to be a compression leak at the same point in the gasket also. Instead of the excess oil that was getting in the cylinder being burned off before, much of it was being forced out the leak in the head gasket so you didn't see it smoke from the exhaust. Once you fixed the gasket leak and restored cylinder pressure, the excess oil has to be burned now. A small puff of oil smoke at startup or throttle up can be considered normal on an old Kohler that has a lot of hours on it, but if its smoking continuously and/or consuming a lot of oil its time to rebuild it.

-Mark-

[krazy_horse 59]

This is smoking from start up to full throttle and smoking enough to fill my garage in a short time. Mark what you say makes good sense. The cylinder fins had oil but not that much and I did have to add oil. It was not an oil burner and used very little. As I said I will try the breather and a new air filter before I take seroius action.

[MarkPalmer 81]

Good idea to try cleaning the breather first, and replacing the rubber seal in it that often turns stale. It just seems odd a simple decarbonizing and head gasket replacement would turn an engine in to a major oil burner all of a sudden.

-Mark-

[Rooster 192]

Did you do anything to the valves? How were the seals and guides? Are they lapped correctly.

[Don1977 605]

You said you cleaned the bore, What did you clean out of it, there shouldn't have been anything to clean out. If you used carb. cleaner on the bore that could be your problem or rings are stuck in the piston. Gas getting in the crank case can wash down cylinder walls and cause a engine to use oil.

[krazy_horse 59]

The bore was clean and I wped it just to remove any carbon, etc. from the top of block cleaning. The valves look good also the seats. Runs great just smokes(a bunch) Any way hope to clean the breather and replace the air filter which looks way past due tomorrow or Wed. Will post how this turns out. Thanks, Jim

[Callen 64]

pull the plug, see if it's oily.it may take a bit to burn that oil out of the exhaust pipe.

[Duff 206]

So....what was the final verdict on this?

Duff

[krazy_horse 59]

So....what was the final verdict on this?

Duff I pulled the carb, cleaned the breather and put on a new air filter. She runs great with no smoke, cranking or full throttle. I am a happy camper!! Now on to the next one, a rough as a cob C-121 I bought in N.C.