Craftsman T1600 Riding Mower Blows blueish smoke

[Craftsman Garage]

After you've run the mower for a while, getting it nice and hot, stop it and remove the dipstick. Do you see a white-ish smoke slowly coming out? This is a telltale sign of a blown head gasket, or very excessive cylinder blow-by.

yep, we ordered a head gasket

 

[Craftsman Garage]

After you've run the mower for a while, getting it nice and hot, stop it and remove the dipstick. Do you see a white-ish smoke slowly coming out? This is a telltale sign of a blown head gasket, or very excessive cylinder blow-by.

Yes i do

 

[Craftsman Garage]

so, when I get the head gasket sometime tomorrow, is there anything I should look out for or do or be careful about?

 

[bertsmobile1]

Try to avoid removing the muffler from the head
Muffler bolts are prone to breaking which turns a 2 hour job into an all day nightmare.
Pull the carb off at the manifold, replace the O ring but don't touch any of the linkages , just lay it aside .
If there are signs of the leaking gasses eroding a channel in either the head or cylinder then lap them with some wet & dry on a sheet of glass or a concrete finishers /plasteres float \
The surface is not flat as they are cut with a flycutter rough in a mill deliberately to grip the gasket .

 

[Craftsman Garage]

Try to avoid removing the muffler from the head
Muffler bolts are prone to breaking which turns a 2 hour job into an all day nightmare.
Pull the carb off at the manifold, replace the O ring but don't touch any of the linkages , just lay it aside .
If there are signs of the leaking gasses eroding a channel in either the head or cylinder then lap them with some wet & dry on a sheet of glass or a concrete finishers /plasteres float \
The surface is not flat as they are cut with a flycutter rough in a mill deliberately to grip the gasket .

all right

 

[Craftsman Garage]

so, yesterday I replaced the head gasket and at first, I couldn't see where the leak was, but then I found this...

 

[Craftsman Garage]

so, yesterday I replaced the head gasket and at first, I couldn't see where the leak was, but then I found this...

I found the leak, and I DID have to take the exhaust off, but honestly, the hardest part of this WHOLE repair was getting the OHV COVER OFF?, the head bolts weren't hard to get off and the exhaust bolts were a piece of cake. I started it late at night and I noticed it does have a slight more -bang- to the sound, but I adjusted the valves with a feeler gauge. I set the bottom to 0.04 and the top to 0.06, she works great now with no more smoking!!!!!!!

 

[Rivets]

Thank you for letting us know.

 

[Craftsman Garage]

Thank you for letting us know.

do you think the banging noise is a problem? I'm guessing it's just cuz I'm used to it running on valves gapped at 0.09

 

[Rivets]

Because I can’t hear it, there is no way I can answer that question. Sorry.