i have a kohler ch 22 and it has a slight knock. i removed the valve cover and started the motor and very little oil came off the rockers. is this normal or do i have a bad oil pump?
You may have just flat spotted a lifter. when the lifters fail to turn they wear a groove in the bottom where it contacts the cam lobe causing a tapping/ pecking noise. Could also have a collapsed lifter causing a tapping noise. Can be confirmed by removing the valve covers and see if any of the lifters are spongy by pushing down on the push rod/rocker.
You will need to comfirm oil pressure at the low oil pressure sensor and at the oil filter to determine if the oil pump is bad, not likely, but they did have a few horizontal shaft engines where the oil pump intake tube would come loose and loose oil pressure. Can be comfirmed by overfilling the engine by a quart of oil.
Some of the command engines have hollow push rods and some have solid push rods and use oil vapor to lube the rockers.
