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Hey guys. I have a problem that I haven't encountered yet. I just replaced the head on a 17.5 Intek due to valve guide intermittently moving in the head. Ordered a new head (OEM from Briggs) and it looks like Briggs made a change to the head and added more cooling fins to the exhaust side of the head. Now, when putting the inner blower housing back on the housing won't line up. It appears that the original blower shroud that wraps around the cooling fins on the cylinder and head needs ro be trimmed so that it wI'll fit. Has an tone ran into this and if so how did you make it fit? If the shroud has to be trimmed, will this cause inadequate airflow and overheating? The new head came with a new half shroud in the box. I rechecked my part numbers and it said that that shroud if for a different code date than mine.
Thanks for the help in advance.

Give us the model, type, and code off of your engine so we can see if there any updated information on your engine.

I'm sorry ILENGINE. Rookie mistake and I should know better tHan posting without giving all the info.
Model
31777
Type
0140E1
Code
001019ZD
I have changed several of these INTEK heads and have never seen a head casting that looked like this one. The part I ordered is Briggs 796026. It bolts up perfectly but it appears the casting has changed or the extra long cooling fins didn't get trimmed off in production. The final casting looks very crude and not finely milled like the usual casting. It fits perfectly except for the fact that I can't get the inner blower housing to go over or clear these new extended cooling fins.
Thank you for replying and any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
PS: I had Mt buddy at the local Briggs dealer double check my part numbers. The only difference is that an earlier code date took the supplied half shroud that was included with the head. I looked closely at three shroud and even using it, the inner blower housing will not clear and hits when attempting to slide the housing down over the fins so the cooling shroud and bolt holes will line up.

I'm sorry. The type is 0148 E1 not 0140

And model number was 311777 not 31777. Sorry. I'm watching my 2 year old grandson today and he had me distracted.

Picture sure would be nice.

I thought of that. Let me see if I can figure out how to post one. Thanks

I didn't find anything about it from the briggs dealer network system. I did discover that your head had superceded like 6 times before reaching the final number that you have. So there may be a problem, and briggs hasn't addressed it yet.

Please find attached photo. I hope it attached in a format that yall can see. The marker markings is how much would have to be removed from the cooling fins to get my blower housing to fit down over the cooling fins on the head. I contacted briggs tech support line about it. They are useless as tits on a boar hog. They pretty much told me to take it to a dealer and referee me to my friends dealer. I have already let him look at it this morning along with 2 of his other techs and there exact words were "the blower housing won't clear the fins, call briggs. This machine is repaired and ready to go out the door, if I could just get the dang blower housing back on it. I was really disappointed in the people at briggs tech support. The two guys even told me that they didn't have any knowledge in small engines. Sorta like the girl ya see at Auto Zone with the 3 inch fingernails that doesn't know a muffler from a spark plug. If the computer doesn't tell them something they are useless.

Additionally, I found 1 guy on the net that said he had the same problem. He ziz wheeled the fins and it fit. My fear is, the head was engineered this way for a reason (my thoughts are to create more cooling surface for these class of heads that heat up and the valve guides move). If I cut this thing is it going to cause the head to overheat? I'm at a loss.

medic2575 said:

Additionally, I found 1 guy on the net that said he had the same problem. He ziz wheeled the fins and it fit. My fear is, the head was engineered this way for a reason (my thoughts are to create more cooling surface for these class of heads that heat up and the valve guides move). If I cut this thing is it going to cause the head to overheat? I'm at a loss.

Click to expand...

What I would do is make 2 release cuts in the blower housing to allow it to buldge out with the fins. That way if it has to be replaced you could just push it back in if the new head does not have the extra fins.

That's an awesome idea. I'm going to give that a shot tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who responded. Will update when done.

Hey guys. I didn't want to leave this thread hanging without a response to how I fixed this problem. I made relief cuts in the blower housing and slipped the housing over the newly designed extended cooling fins and slipped the blower shroud that surrounds the block back under the blower housing. It buttoned right back up like a champ. The new head didn't fix my problem (I posted further questions on a earlier thread I had posted about this mower) but the advice I got on here absolutely helped me fix the fitment problem. Now if you guys could assist me with my original thread (MOWER BOGGING) that would be much appreciated. As always, thank you so much for the help.