"Bob Chilcoat" wrote in message
news
- or something important inside. I noticed some oil seeping out onto the
shed floor a week ago when I got the tractor out to cut the lawn just
before leaving for a weeks vacation. When I started it up, the vibration
was so bad that my right foot started going numb after a few minutes.
Looked at the oil seepage, which seemed to be coming from the bottom of
the
crankcase. The bolts holding the engine to the mower frame had come
loose,
so I tightened them up, which reduced the vibration quite a bit, and
finished the lawn. After getting back from Colonial Williamsburg (highly
recommended, by the way) I had a more detailed look at the engine.

It's a 15 hp Briggs OHV engine on a Craftsman tractor which I bought new
about 7 years ago. When I bought it, the engine was apparently one of
Briggs' first OHV consumer engines. The first one I got seized solid
within
the first few seconds under load after a Sears salesman recommended
half-hour "break in" at full throttle (no load), followed by a half-hour
cool off. Sears gave me a new tractor, and said that they'd had nearly
25%
of these new 15 hp engines sieze unless they were broken in like I had
done
mine. Some had siezed even after the break in, like mine. The
replacement
has run like a champ until a week ago. I've been religious about checking
the oil and changing it every 25 hours. The engine has considerably less
than 200 hours on it.

Whatever has gone wrong inside is bad. The engine bangs and vibrates like
there's a rod thrashing around in there, but it runs and delivers full
power. Oil is leaking out of the sump from somewhere. I now have to
decide
whether or not to try and rebuild the engine, replace it (Sears does not
offer this engine any more as a spare part, but I found one virtually
identical on the internet for $399 plus shipping), or just bite the bullet
and replace the mower, which is still in pretty good shape. If I just
replace the engine, the hydro transmission will probably go the week after
:-)

Any thoughts?

--
Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

You know you are going to pull it apart. I wouldn't be able to resist not
knowing. It might be simple and cheap to fix. How is your luck factor
running?