STEVE - The K-181 was the engine that was in My #72 when I bought it back in 1980 or '81. It was only a year old according to the serial number, and I only ran it mowing a small city lot and pushing a little snow. It developed what I thought was excessive blow-by so I rebuilt a K-241 and dropped it into the 72 in '85. When I pulled the K-181 down last spring the cyl. looked fine, still had all the factory cross-hatch and no ridge at the top of the bore and the piston looked almost like new. So I replaced the rings, exh. valve and rod, had a local shop lightly hone the bore, grind/lap the valves, polish the rod throw on the crank and reassembled the engine. It's going to be used for light duty on a lawn vacuum that only takes 2-3 HP to run at just over idle RPM. The 14 HP engine I'm rebuilding for use in the 72 showed more wear but probably would have run for a while yet except for the fact it sat outside. It's getting bored .010" O/S, new rod, piston/rings, possibly valve guides. The stellite valves and hardened valve seats look fine. Anything that gets disassembled gets new gaskets & seals when it goes back together. The K-241 I rebuilt in '85 just got "Freshened Up" also. Rings, rod, valve grind, etc. and has gotten run hard for 1200 hours so far. The Exh. valve will stick momentatily when it gets hot which tells Me it needs the valves ground but it only burns 2-3 ounces of oil while mowing for 5-6 hours so it isn't in too bad a shape. It's really tough to tell what needs to be done until You get the engine apart unless You know how the engine was run. Plan for the worst and hope for the best!
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