Archive through August 05, 2013

[kide]

Funny (OT, but could be on)... The old Oldsmobile F-85 Jetfire, with the aluminum 215 CID engine and turbocharger (1962-'63 IIRC) used water/alcohol injection on the turbo setup to control pre-ignition during boost. Olds mechanic told me that the heads were always pretty clean on 'em. Maybe we should look at one of the simple water/alky mist type systems (went in the base of the air cleaner) to clean and cool our Kohlers.....

 

[bjamison]

So Dennis & Garry, I know I ask some quick questions - and sometimes some pretty stupid quick questions, but...

Are you saying that when you spray water or sea foam into the carb - to decarb the head, there is no need (perhaps ever?) to pull the head and decarb it until an engine rebuild?

Just asking - because I don't know.

What I do know is with some engines it is a pain in the buttox to take the tins, fuel tanks, etc. off the engine to get to the head in the first place and if you don't break a head bolt or tin screw getting to the head to get it off - great. Then when you get everything back together, sometimes it's a bear to re-torque the head after some run time because of some of the same stuff in the way after the re-install.

If spraying water or sea foam does the decarb trick - I'm all for it.

How often do you do this treatment?

 

[jhillegass]

Guys,

Thanks for all the info, I'll check out the easy stuff first, then on to decarbonizing if needed.

I've not heard of the water injection method before. (but it does sound wrong to put water into the carb....Hmmmm.....)

I did find that the front starter/generator bolt was broken. I was working on that when I quit last night. I may not get back on it until Wednesday evening.....

 

[kide]

You don't flood the engine with water (or Seafoam), use something like a Windex sprayer, spray just heavy enough to make it start missing, but don't kill it... I'm not sure about with water, but with Seafoam, you go through a number of cycles of spraying without killing the engine, THEN one last time, spray long enough to kill it..

Hmmmmm.. Windex - alcohol and water already mixed....

 

[digger]

Time Test

 

[jbaker]

your good on time in Ridott, ILL

 

[kmcconaughey]

Charlie, you're on time now!

 

[rbeem]

I inject -32 windshield washer fluid into my Duramax, or straight distilled water when no risk of freezing.
Wrong forum to go too deep about all that, but it cleans the intake from past EGR soot and keeps it clean.

For the Kohler.....I'll stick to pulling the head, besides usually they need other TLC while you're at it.

 

[dfrisk]

GERRY, BILL - Same drill with spraying water into a running Kohler, the engine will sputter but don't spray enough to make it stall. By the time you've sprayed a pint or so into the engine it's about as clean as it's going to get. And like I suggest, I typically did it as part of a tune-up, so change the plug & oil on a K-series, so about every 150 to 250 hours.

With the engine running 1800 RPM, the piston is coming to top dead center 30 times per second, so every .033333 seconds, not much chance for hard carbon particles to get stuck between the piston & cyl. wall and scratch the cyl. wall, or pieces of broken wire brush bristles to get between the piston & walls either. You may get the exh valve closing on a couple pieces of carbon but that crushes up and blows away quickly. The inertia of the bits of carbon on top of the piston throws them up and into the air stream blowing out the exh valve as soon as they pop free.

I ran my old K241 1400 hours without ever removing the head. I retorque'd the head several times in that 1400 hours. Not sure how many hours were on the K301 in the 129 since the Tiny Tach died after about 100 hours in 1-1/2 yrs. But it had to have been 600-800 hrs. by the time I sold it.

It may seem like spraying water into a running engine would damage it, but just think how much water a boat engine eats on rough water and many performance boats have exposed carb inlets, no filter at all.

RICK - So you'll inject water or WWF into a $15,000 Duramax engine... but not a $500 Kohler? O-K... Water injection kits were made and sold by a lot of aftermarket co's in the 1970's & early 1980's to stop detonation when unleaded gas and the early vacuum controlled pollution controls first came out.

About a year ago when I was watching an ep. of NRPA Tractor Pulling on RFD-TV, Ashley Corzine interviewed a Super-Stock diesel puller running a D-21 Allis. He said he burns three gallons of diesel fuel during a pull... and "Burns" TEN gallons of water. He injected water between each of the three stages of turbo-charging, plus had a water injector aimed down each of the six intake ports of the cyl. head to keep combustion temps in control.

 

[rbeem]

Dennis,
I don't have a problem with spraying water-meth at anything, rather the cost / time to do so in my Kohlers does not justify my own time.
It's a proven method that's been used since WWII or earlier.

 

[dfrisk]

RICK - So pulling the gas tank(if req'd) & cooling shrouds and removing the head and wire brushing and replacing a $10 head gasket is faster for you?

That's fine... I was just trying to let Jerry H know there's a way to de-carbon the head like Frank suggested that I find faster & easier.

YMMV, etc, etc and all other standard disclaimers apply.

STEVE B. - I really don't like it when people take a Gas Axe to a CC frame or other CC parts. I know why the prior owner did that to your 100 around the gear shift, but still. You did a REALLY great job of repairing that tractor.

Hopefully when SON gets the paint buffed out on the hood and gets the decals installed our old 70 will look almost that good. I wasn't real happy with the way the paint laid out and shined, but it's as good as the factory paint job was. It still needs some parts, new grill casting, and some 23-8.50 Firestones on 7X12 wheels, and SON wants to make flat-top fenders like my #72 has for it. I wanted to recess headlights into my rear fenders but that would have made a difficult job almost impossible with the tools I had available at the time, but maybe SON can accomplish that.

 

[rbeem]

Dennis
Not necessarily faster, but justified in my opinion. Much easier than working on the D'Max.
Most of the time the head gasket can be reused unless there has been a problem, in that case a person should be replacing it anyway.
Myself, I like to get in there and see what shape the valves are in, maybe do a little polishing, check for cylinder wall scoring.

I like and use water-meth, it has it's place. When you get your sytem working our your Kohler please share your experiences.

 

[sblunier]

Denny,

Top shaft was twisted at the 2nd gear cluster....... Moron's repair attempt!

 

[cjrolke]

this is probably beating a dead horse but I have a 100 and a 125
both ran good no smoking or anything

I changed the oil in them and put in sae 30 oil and now they both smoke. on both startup and just running

( I am scared to change the oil on any of my other ones)

got any ideas?
thanks
chris

 

[fcurrier]

Chris: That's scary! Not that it should make a difference, but what brand oil? Oh, and did you use 1.5 quarts in each one?

 

[cjrolke]

Frank

I want to say Valvoline and yes 1.5 quarts each
I actually did this a year or so ago and lived with it and now I am on a kick to fix the problem or at least understand it more

 

[dfrisk]

STEVE - Dad told me once long ago, "A welding electrode holder is a DANGEROUS Weapon in some people's hands" Guess the same can be said for a gas axe in the hands of the prior owner of that 100. WHAT was he thinking?!?!

RICK - You misunderstood me, I only spray water in my Kohlers when they exhibit signs of a carboned up combustion chamber. I see no need for a water injection system on a Kohler.

Warm up engine by running, remove air filter cover & filter, set RPM to 1800-2000 RPM, spray water into carb throat until a pint of water has been used. Install new air filter and pre-cleaner foam wrap, change spark plug, I always put a swipe of Anti-siece on plug threads, even in cast iron heads, change oil and run the tractor another 150 to 250 hours. You can add a change of the points & condenser in there too.

Think I did the water spray two or three times in 1400 hours on the old K241, so every 2nd or 3rd tune up at most. Also did the crankcase vacuum test shown in the Kohler service manual a couple times too. Best way to determine condition of valves & cyl.walls and rings.

 

[fcurrier]

Chris, I think I finally met someone who can procrastinate as well as me! To keep the subject of your oil use problem going, do you remember the post about synthetic oil and how its makeup was compared to equally sized ball bearings instead of randomly sized ball bearings in dino oil? It was a bit scary, but I changed the 4.0 Jeep's engine to full synthetic oil and it pretty much quit using oil. I think that before they throw my ashes out back that all the engines here will be running synthetic oil.

 

[pbell]

Has Cub Cadet shut down the parts lookup for the older IH built models? Every time I try to look up a part I get a Sorry an error has occurred while processing your request. Please try again., whether I try from the link above on this site, from another site, or by going direct to cub Cadet dot com.

 

[cjrolke]

Frank

I had a 2000 gtp a while back that was used I decided to put mobil one oil in it

after that it started leaking on every gasket

I have a 2000 gmc that I started with mobil one and it doesn't leak a drop

synthetic is nice if you start with it (and can afford it all the time )