Burning Oil When Hot

[mrmupton]

Hi, My Hustler Fastrak SuperZ 52” with a Kawasaki engine (1000 hours) is burning oil after a hard days work. It got real bad when i was cutting some thick grass and I saw grass covered the air cooling fan so it was definitely starting to over-heat. It only smokes when hot toward the end of my 5 acre lot generally, and not usually a whole lot. Smoke is not coming from exhaust but from under engine on mounting plate.

I’m planning on changing out the oil and cleaning under engine to see if there is an oil leak, but wonder if there is something else it might be. It seemed better immediately after cleaning out underneath the engine and the air cooling fan. What can I rule out as an issue? I don’t think its a piston ring as the exhaust is clear.. could be a leak or a gasket? I’m wondering if it is the later because its only an issue under duress.

Would love your thoughts and recommendations! Thanks!

 

[bertsmobile1]

Oil cold be overheating & getting too thin
What oil are you using ?
Apart from that if it is on the top of the floor under the engine then apart from a hole Kawasaki did not make being there you only have 4 options
1) leaking sump gasket
2) excessive wear in the governor rod hole
3) loose oil filter
3 ) bad breather
Check underneath the mower
If it is very oily underneath the floor then that shifts the blame to a leaking lower seal
When that happens oil drip down the PTO shaft then hits the pulley & gets flung everywhere .

 

[Bertrrr]

It's not burning oil - it's losing oil somewhere and getting hot makes it smoke nearly all engines have small oil leaks when they have a lot of hrs running. Just add as needed until you find / fix the oil leak

 

[MParr]

Did you remove the fan shroud and clean the cooling fins on top of the engine? If not, do so.
Kawasaki has updated their oil recommendations to include 20W50 oil for hot ambient temperatures and engines that are using oil. Kawasaki recommends10W40 through 20W50.

 

[MParr]

Delete

 

[mrmupton]

Oil cold be overheating & getting too thin
What oil are you using ?
Apart from that if it is on the top of the floor under the engine then apart from a hole Kawasaki did not make being there you only have 4 options
1) leaking sump gasket
2) excessive wear in the governor rod hole
3) loose oil filter
3 ) bad breather
Check underneath the mower
If it is very oily underneath the floor then that shifts the blame to a leaking lower seal
When that happens oil drip down the PTO shaft then hits the pulley & gets flung everywhere .

I just changed the oil 20/40 kawasaki oil, oil filter, air filters, spark plugs and fuel filter. Ran fine for an hour then ran out of fuel. After restarting with E10 in engine it was losing power and not cutting with the deck on. Changed the fuel back to non-ethonol (siphoned out) and it was still struggling. Air intake looks clear (but I'll clean that out as the next commentator mentions), and can't see where oil is coming from, but exhaust tubes are smoking a little. It is not messy around the PTO under the engine, but had build up of oil on floor under engine above PTO.
The oil filter may have been slightly lose, but not sure if that was the culprit for the oil. Possibly for the oil build up under the engine block.

Spark plugs looked ok when I changed the oil... little grey colored but not terrible.

 

[mrmupton]

Did you remove the fan shroud and clean the cooling fins on top of the engine? If not, do so.
Kawasaki has updated their oil recommendations to include 20W50 oil for hot ambient temperatures and engines that are using oil. Kawasaki recommends10W40 through 20W50.

I'm using 20W40 from the oil change kit. I'll clean it out as see if it helps.

 

[mrmupton]

I'm using 20W40 from the oil change kit. I opened everything up and cleaned it.

 

[mrmupton]

Opened up the air intake and it looks pretty clean, no debris or build up.

 

[Bertrrr]

That E10 fuel does not have the octane to run properly, If your plug was gray in color this is a sign of a clean burning engine, clean up the engine with something so you can see where your leak is