37 Hp Briggs Vangaurd Blew up

mogie55

Member
I have 2021 Scag Turf Tiger 2 with a 37HP Vanguard engine. It has been serviced every 80 hrs.It Had 22 hours on the oil change. I had been mowing for 15 minutes and the motor puked.The Mower has 392 hours on it. Don't Know What happened exactly yet. Its sitting at the dealer now .I'm waiting to get the engine back to tear it down.Dealer wants $110.00 and hour to tear it down and see what caused it. The left side plug defitnely got hot and the piston hit the plug. Briggs will not warranty the engine because it is 5 years old even though I have all receipts and service records.It is going to have to have a complete new engine.$4500.00. Engine has been back ordered for six weeks and still waiting. .I am done with Briggs
 
I am going to wait to make a decision until the diagnosis comes back from the teardown. What was cause of failure will be the deciding factor me, before I lay blame
 
One thing for sure, piston hit the head. Normally that means a broken connecting rod. Normally means it was running without oil pressure. Q for the OP, when did the oil light come on?
 
I have 2021 Scag Turf Tiger 2 with a 37HP Vanguard engine. It has been serviced every 80 hrs.It Had 22 hours on the oil change. I had been mowing for 15 minutes and the motor puked.The Mower has 392 hours on it. Don't Know What happened exactly yet. Its sitting at the dealer now .I'm waiting to get the engine back to tear it down.Dealer wants $110.00 and hour to tear it down and see what caused it. The left side plug defitnely got hot and the piston hit the plug. Briggs will not warranty the engine because it is 5 years old even though I have all receipts and service records.It is going to have to have a complete new engine.$4500.00. Engine has been back ordered for six weeks and still waiting. .I am done with Briggs
Rehlko (Kohler) and Kawasaki are the other engine options.
See if the dealer can get a better deal on either of those and is willing to rewire it.
 
One thing for sure, piston hit the head. Normally that means a broken connecting rod. Normally means it was running without oil pressure. Q for the OP, when did the oil light come on?
Did the rod break and piston hit the plug, or did something get into the engine and get wedged between the piston and plug, like the head of the valve or valve seat or something else.
 
I won’t know what happened until I get the original engine back and pull it apart myself. I am not paying them $110 an hour to pull the engine apart. The low oil pressure light never came on that I saw I look where I’m mowing if the light came on, I never saw it I would like to put a Kawasaki engine in it, but it has to be rewired in different mounts I believe.
 
I was going to get an engine and put it in myself, but the three places that I checked were similar to this dealer in price plus, I cannot use the old throttle cable system. It has to be upgraded to a electronic throttle total BS.
 
I won’t know what happened until I get the original engine back and pull it apart myself. I am not paying them $110 an hour to pull the engine apart. The low oil pressure light never came on that I saw I look where I’m mowing if the light came on, I never saw it I would like to put a Kawasaki engine in it, but it has to be rewired in different mounts I believe.
It would certainly have to be rewired.
I would think that Scag uses the same mounting pattern on each Turf Tiger 2 from that year.
 
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