My father purchased one of the first Honda Harmony 215 mowers when they came out in the early 90's. He's used this lawnmower extensively over the years and gave it to me a few years ago when the transmission failed in the self propel. That wasn't a problem with me because my 1/2 acre yard is largely flat and being a runner, pushing a mower around is no problem.
Well, I am of the thought that he may have cronically been under-filling the oil in the lawnmower throughout it's entire life by checking the oil with the dipstick cap fully screwed in. Power has always been a bit meh with this mower...just didn't really go through tall grass as good as I thought a 5hp mower should. This past season, the lawnmower really started to consume oil and smoke. When I properly filled up the oil, I noticed that there would be oil smoke out the air intake from the breather assembly, and out the exhaust too, and I noticed oil blowing back out the breather, and collecting underneath the air cleaner assembly, making a huge nasty mess....something was definitely amiss.
now that mowing season is over with for a few months, I've decided to inspect the mower. Compression was good when tested, but when I pulled the head, I found some scoring of the cylinder wall. When I run my finger over it, I can barely feel it, but it is very noticable visually...it's obviously going to need new rings. Is this block salvagable though? Can this be honed out? Are larger bore rings avalabile for the GXV 140? I don't want to scrap this mower...this is a great machine that would cost a lot of money to replace, and it's got the good GXV140 engine on it. This is a rebuild job I think I can do, and I've looked up parts and they are actually rather reasonable. I've serviced many Briggs engines before, but If this was a Briggs & stratton engine in this condition, I'd probably scrap it, as they are easy and cheap to come by, but I think I can bring this thing back to life. (BTW, I'm not interested in repairing the self-propel transmission, but definitely want to get this thing mowing back to the way it was new if I can!)
Well, I am of the thought that he may have cronically been under-filling the oil in the lawnmower throughout it's entire life by checking the oil with the dipstick cap fully screwed in. Power has always been a bit meh with this mower...just didn't really go through tall grass as good as I thought a 5hp mower should. This past season, the lawnmower really started to consume oil and smoke. When I properly filled up the oil, I noticed that there would be oil smoke out the air intake from the breather assembly, and out the exhaust too, and I noticed oil blowing back out the breather, and collecting underneath the air cleaner assembly, making a huge nasty mess....something was definitely amiss.
now that mowing season is over with for a few months, I've decided to inspect the mower. Compression was good when tested, but when I pulled the head, I found some scoring of the cylinder wall. When I run my finger over it, I can barely feel it, but it is very noticable visually...it's obviously going to need new rings. Is this block salvagable though? Can this be honed out? Are larger bore rings avalabile for the GXV 140? I don't want to scrap this mower...this is a great machine that would cost a lot of money to replace, and it's got the good GXV140 engine on it. This is a rebuild job I think I can do, and I've looked up parts and they are actually rather reasonable. I've serviced many Briggs engines before, but If this was a Briggs & stratton engine in this condition, I'd probably scrap it, as they are easy and cheap to come by, but I think I can bring this thing back to life. (BTW, I'm not interested in repairing the self-propel transmission, but definitely want to get this thing mowing back to the way it was new if I can!)
