I was mowing and tinkering with the electrical system of my recently scavenged 26 HP Intek. It is a MODEL: 445877 TYPE: 0760 B1 CODE: 080228YG style engine. Anyway, there was a backfire and the engine suddenly lost a lot of power and sounded horrible like it was popping out the intake.
Anyway, I pulled on plug wire while it was running and there was no change in how it sounded. This told me that cylinder was dead. I then pulled the opposing side and the engine died so it was running on one cylinder. The left side cylinder (as when mowing) was dead.
I removed the valve cover found that the lock nut setup that allows for adjustment of valve lash had backed off and was laying in the valve cover. I hadn't messed with this as I checked lash earlier and it was right on the money so left it alone. The problem was there was no push rod. Apparently these can slide back into the oil pan once they are loose as I found other references to this problem.
The exhaust push rod fell off in this case so it is steel. I saw a Youtube video of someone using a magnet to fish it out the oil fill hole. The dipstick and fill tube have to be removed. Has anyone done this here? I would probably replace the pushrod no matter what but was wondering about leaving it in there. I don't like foreign debris inside of engines and suspect this would eventually lead to interference inside the engine. Has anyone left this alone? If so, did it cause further problems down the road?
I drove the thing a couple hundred yards like this to get it back to the place. I checked the oil once I realized what had happened and didn't see any metal particles so that is a good sign.
Should anything else be replaced while I am in there? Is the locknut or rocker likely damaged by this as well? Should I use red loctite when re-assembling? I think I may check all of these when fixing this one.
Thanks.
Anyway, I pulled on plug wire while it was running and there was no change in how it sounded. This told me that cylinder was dead. I then pulled the opposing side and the engine died so it was running on one cylinder. The left side cylinder (as when mowing) was dead.
I removed the valve cover found that the lock nut setup that allows for adjustment of valve lash had backed off and was laying in the valve cover. I hadn't messed with this as I checked lash earlier and it was right on the money so left it alone. The problem was there was no push rod. Apparently these can slide back into the oil pan once they are loose as I found other references to this problem.
The exhaust push rod fell off in this case so it is steel. I saw a Youtube video of someone using a magnet to fish it out the oil fill hole. The dipstick and fill tube have to be removed. Has anyone done this here? I would probably replace the pushrod no matter what but was wondering about leaving it in there. I don't like foreign debris inside of engines and suspect this would eventually lead to interference inside the engine. Has anyone left this alone? If so, did it cause further problems down the road?
I drove the thing a couple hundred yards like this to get it back to the place. I checked the oil once I realized what had happened and didn't see any metal particles so that is a good sign.
Should anything else be replaced while I am in there? Is the locknut or rocker likely damaged by this as well? Should I use red loctite when re-assembling? I think I may check all of these when fixing this one.
Thanks.
