I have two mowers in my shop right now that after you mow for a while and shut it down to dump bag, drink a beer or whatever the engine is seized up. You can grab the blade and break it loose easily and they run fine. Both engines are the cheaper briggs with the plastic carb, one is on a Husqvarna and one is on a Craftsman with about 3 hours on it. I suspect that the big end of the rod is heating up and seizing to the crank. I understand that the rods are aluminum with no bearing inserts. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance
Engines seize up
- Thread starter oldcoot
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Did you check your oil level? are you using the correct weight oil? i would imagine it's SAE 30.
cpurvis
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One of your basic assumptions is wrong. As circular items, such as the rod journal, heat up, the inside diameter gets bigger, not smaller.
So let's consider other things that could lock up your engine, which was running fine right up to the point of being shut off. I'd take off the shroud and clean the cylinder fins.
So let's consider other things that could lock up your engine, which was running fine right up to the point of being shut off. I'd take off the shroud and clean the cylinder fins.
You are absolutely right and due to differing rates of linear expansion the crank journal would not grow as much as the ID of the rod bore, sorry bout that The cylinder cooling fins are clean as these are both low hour engines and I don't know about the oil but they are both clean and on the mark
Hammermechanicman
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I would pull the shroud and check the brake. If something was binding in the engines they would have failed.