New to me X304, oil everywhere!

[cold djinn]

 

[cold djinn]

Here you can see fresh oil under the flywheel/ring gear. I don't know if it's because the prior owner spilled some topping up, or the crankcase breather is leaking. I'm going to pull the flywheel to have a better look.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

Here is a pic of a bare block. The plate with 4 screws is the breather. Usually when they leak the air off the flywheel blows most of the oil down the left cylinder. You need to remove the intake manifold and the flywheel to get to it.

 

[cold djinn]

View attachment 72858
Here is a pic of a bare block. The plate with 4 screws is the breather. Usually when they leak the air off the flywheel blows most of the oil down the left cylinder. You need to remove the intake manifold and the flywheel to get to it.

Thank you. I'll pull the flywheel and have a look. It would make sense with the oil sitting up behind the manifold on the top of the block.

 

[cold djinn]

Either valve cover gasket, upper crank seal or someone was lazy adding oil dumping all over the top of the engine. Either no funnel or no junk used plastic soda bottle with the top cutoff.

CLEAN THE COOLING FINS or you can/will trash this engine. All around the block pulling the metal tin shroud that fits around the cylinder/s. Clean as in new engine clean. Clean as in new mower clean. Clean as in hospital clean. Or as Bertsmobileone used to say, there's clean and then there's CLEAN.

I live in Southwestern Ontario Canada, It's still below 0 degrees here (Celsius) and I just have a small garage, so All I could do for now was spray 9/engine degreaser, and a pressurized spray jug. Didn't work too bad. I did notice that the breather vent did leak onto the right jug, as mentioned by someone who replied. Thank you Sir!. I've ordered an upgraded vent plate, and then going to copy it for the X300s. Just putting everything back together now. Thought I'd snap a couple of pics to show the progress. Thank you to everyone that replied.

 

[slomo]

She is looking clean-ER. LOL. Nice job on the cleanup.

I would pull all your starter cables and apply die-electric grease on every terminal and nut. Polish the terminals first of course. Battery side as well.

 

[slomo]

Can you see on the bottom of each cylinder? Fins all clean and clear? Maybe a mirror on a stick or cell phone camera?

 

[cold djinn]

Can you see on the bottom of each cylinder? Fins all clean and clear? Maybe a mirror on a stick or cell phone camera?

Going to have to wait until warmer weather. It looks pretty good though still, for what I was working with. Basically, just looking for the oil leak right now, and wanted to clean as much accumulated gunk as I could. That said, I did clean as well as possible underneath. I'm going to strip down each machine in the spring and do it right. Next job is trying to fix the chewed wires and get her purring.

 

[Hammermechanicman]

I live in Southwestern Ontario Canada, It's still below 0 degrees here (Celsius) and I just have a small garage, so All I could do for now was spray 9/engine degreaser, and a pressurized spray jug. Didn't work too bad. I did notice that the breather vent did leak onto the right jug, as mentioned by someone who replied. Thank you Sir!. I've ordered an upgraded vent plate, and then going to copy it for the X300s. Just putting everything back together now. Thought I'd snap a couple of pics to show the progress. Thank you to everyone that replied.
View attachment 72900View attachment 72900View attachment 72901

I got this in the shop. Kaw horizontal twin with leaking breather gasket. Picture doesn't do it justice for the oily dirt and grass goo. Already cleaned ip about half the mess.

 

[cold djinn]

Wow! I wonder how long this has been leaking? It's a real wonder that it didn't blow up from the heat.
I don't understand how a person could leave it like this, this long.