On Fri, 07 May 2010 23:39:04 +0000, Jules Richardson wrote:

On Fri, 07 May 2010 12:25:36 +0000, Jules Richardson wrote:

On Thu, 06 May 2010 03:06:48 -0500, mister_friendly wrote:
I just reread your original message. Since you have the head off,
lower the piston and pour some kerosene on it. Work it up and down by
hand and leave it sit with the kero in the cylinder for a day.

Yeah, I'll give that a go; as it's a horizontal cylinder I'll have to
pull the engine, or just stand the whole mower up on its butt :-) It
seems like a worthwhile test, though - I really don't like how loose
that piston is feeling compared to the "new" 11HP engine I got.

OK, now sitting there with a gas/oil mixture (about 75% gas, 25% oil) in
the bore - I'll see how that goes if I leave it overnight.

And just as a final follow-up, that mix had all leaked through into the
crankcase by the following morning... (oh, and I cross-checked flywheel
position against the 11HP engine, and no problems there, so not sheared
key)

Sometime I'll pull the piston out and check the rings, but I'm not in too
much of a hurry now - I dropped the 11HP engine into the mower at the
weekend and then cut the grass, and it worked far better than the 10HP
ever had and didn't go through any more gas doing it.

I might try and fix that 10HP one day though (assuming it just needs new
rings rather than a re-bore) just to keep a spare around... or I might
find a use for another engine around the place.

cheers

Jules