TylerFrankel
Member
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2018
- Threads
- 5
- Messages
- 27
Hello all! I've been working on lawn mowers for neighbors and family since "mastering" the flathead briggs (or so I thought), and recently came across one that was seized solid. It was bad honestly, because it appears as though the aluminum piston melted a bit and the wall too. The rings seized in the piston too, and upon disassembly the oil wiper ring (middle one) broke. I decided that I would just try to fix it as cheap as possible, as I've known these Briggs engines to survive pretty much all abuse. I just sanded the piston skirt a bit to get some melted metal looking extrusions smoothed off, and the walls were lightly sanded to remove extrusions. I don't have the means to bore the engine or hone it, and from what I understand it doesn't work well in aluminum bores anyway. I kid you not, knowing that the wiper ring mostly only wipes extra oil off the walls (as far as I know anyway) I decided to rebuild it and test it before buying new rings. This thing fired right up like new and cuts grass. Seems to have good enough compression to chew thick grass. I don't know how honestly, but I thought it would be salvageable after that. Only flaw is that it SPEWS blue smoke. No knocking or anything. Even after I put a few divots in the piston head from banging it un-seized. Obviously this is likely mostly because of my ring missing, and maybe because the rings are still tight in one spot because of the piston damage and the scoring. Ordered new rings and they're the wrong size so I'm sending them back, but the it occurred to me that the damage to the walls might mean new rings wouldn't seat properly and the engine wouldn't ever stop smoking. At least, not unless I overbored it and got oversized rings, but again I don't really have the means to do that. I'm 16 :laughing: I'm hoping if I sand a bit of material off the piston ring gaps in the piston to make the rings not so tight, and then put new rings in and maybe add some engine restore to the oil (sounds gimmicky, but I've seen it work wonders on youtube project farm channel and hes trustworthy). That it will work again. Walls not having hatching isn't good, but the scores themselves hold oil I guess haha.
Anyway, I just wanted somebody's opinion as to how likely it is new rings would set and the engine would run well enough/retain enough oil to be used like once a week for 3 months a year over like 5 years. Nothing heavy.
Let me know what y'all think. Thanks!
Anyway, I just wanted somebody's opinion as to how likely it is new rings would set and the engine would run well enough/retain enough oil to be used like once a week for 3 months a year over like 5 years. Nothing heavy.
Let me know what y'all think. Thanks!