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My question concerns intermittent lifter noise ( tapping ) on a Craftsman mower with a Kohler engine.

The mower has about 225 hours of run time and is about 16 years old.

I'm using Kohler 10w-30 oil and have changed oil filter & oil on a regular basis.

It seems as though the lifter noise is more prevalent when temps are chillier & not as prevalent when warmer weather arrives.

I was thinking of switching to a synthetic BLEND ( 10w-30 ) to see if this assists in quitting the lifter tap.

Has anybody experienced lifter noise in a Kohler engine...I've read where this is a pretty common issue with Kohler's and that the tap quiets after about ten minutes post start.

Any opinions on whether switching to a synthetic blend oil will help in quieting the lifter?

Is there any harm in running the engine until the lifter noise subsides?

Thanks for any advice that you can offer.

Mike

I call it the ole famous kohler knock. No the synthetic oil won't help or least in most cases that I have seen. In most cases that I have encountered that it won't be to long and it will become a good boat anchor. Check the valves out and look to see of anything out of the strange. Some are adjustable and some not. Without engine numbers it's guess.

Thanks...valves not adjustable on this engine.

Are you saying that the engine will fail in time due to this issue?

More likely to be from the decompression mechanism which is on the top of the cam gear.
A cheap & easy fix before it falls apart.
A very expensive one if left too long.
I am assuming it is a Courage engine we are talking about ?

Kohler Command CV460

Not adjustable as they r hydro.

PTMD I figured is was a command engine.. The Courage like Bert mentioned are not a very good engine.. The Commands are great.....

Bert is on the right track with the cam issue... Let us know Mon Ami ~!~!

Yes it will fail in time then your looking at a short or long block depending on the damage.

While it could be lifter with a leak so it runs down from time to time, they are generally very reliable.
The cam has a decompressor mechanism built into the bottom of it.
The rivets wear / break / come out then the little lever bounces around inside the engine till it gets jambed into something when everything comes to a rather abrupt stop.
The abrupt stop has a habit of knocking teeth off gear wheels or even braking the conrod.
Because the cam runs at 1/2 crank speeds, it sounds like a valve problem.
They pull apart veryeasily and the factory service manual is a free download directly from Kohler. What could be easier ?

Kohler is the self destruction engine. I call them croakers. No what u engine u have they all and will go bad at sometime they are working machines and will fAil at some point. Seen some engines brand new that has failed in the first hour or less

All a part of "evil capitalism" mentality.
Every thing MUST get cheaper every year while I MUST get paid MORE every year for doing exactly the same as I did last year.
So factories continually down grade products to make them cheaper.
HE who makes the cheapest product sells the most & thrives.
He who makes quality products either ends up just surviving with a tiny niche market, or goes bankrupt.

When I was at school ( a very long time ago ) they taught me that "competition will cause industry to provide the best product at the cheapest price"
However there were a whole lot of assumptions made in order for this rule to work.
One of them is an "informed market" which is why they crucify company directors for not telling the stock market stuff that might affect the share prices.
Now the down side is Joe Public who buys mowers has absolutely no idea about the mower, the quality of the machining, assembly & metallurgy.
Further there are no side by side analysis available and very little long term information available.
Thus the "market" is not informed so 99% make the judgement by comparing spec sheets with price charts and thus the cheapest pile of garbage ends up on top.
Then because manufacturers use focus groups to determine what features will be available we end up with 22 almost identical mowers as all of the planning goes into producing a mower with the least number of features that most people felt was undesireable in order to capture more of the market if the price can be driven down far enough.

Now vertical shaft engines are made exclusively for mowers ( Ok Earth Augers too ).
Because they are only made for an item that is almost 100 % price driven they are made as cheap ( and nasty) as possible.
Henry Ford proved this conclusively.
The way to make a fortune is to make a product that is only just able to do the task it was purchased for and to make it work for the least time that the market will tollerate.
Thus with almost identical looking engines except on one the shaft is vertical while the other is horizontal , the vertical one is 1/2 to 1/3 the price of the horizontal.
Why? Because the mower engine only needs to work for a few hundred hours to last 5 to 10 years while the horizontal engine needs to run several thousand to make the same number of years.

A few years back all of the commercial & top end residential mowers ran horizontal shaft engines.
Most of these are still running strong and will continue to do so for decades.

But some started to fit Vertical shafts so the mowers were 1/2 the price and outsold the good ones 10 to 1 .
So companies like Cub , Bolens , Simplicity & Troy-Built went to the wall.

Remember Onan ?
I just spent 6 hours making a Walbro carb work with an Onan engine.
Why was this "viable" ?
Because the Onan ( once the only engine for a generator ) uses ball races top & bottom on the crank, cam & counter shafts.
Thus this engine will run forever and with a little welding on some flogged out parts the owner will get another 20 years out of their Toro 244. Which means there "overpriced mower" will have an amortised cost of around $ 150 / year .
There are no bearings inside a modern vertical shaft engine, except Kawasaki and they are going the run directly on the case route as well because they are not cost competative with the new Kohlers & Briggs, let alone the Loncins & Ducars from China.

So no engine is much different from any other.
Each one has an Achillies heel and it is just luck of the draw as to weather you get one that is good or a lemon.
I got customers who have done better than 1000 hours of their Courages while others had the engine self destruct in under 100.
I have 3 customers who got brand new heads ( and was a complete engine ) from kawasaki because of a weakness in the rocker anchorage.
Heaven only knows how many Intek head gaskets I have done, but I buy them regularly in batches of 20.

The older kohler engines was a pretty good engine they would run for ever with not so many issues. The older vanguard engines was very good engine as well. Your right on spot with them making them to only last for so long. The older engines that lasted and ran good and still is to this day broke Briggs and kohler. They had to come up with a way to make money and the only way was to build a engine with and known faults to cause damage and only last until warranty was out. If I was to buy one today I would look for the warranty coverage. Kohler will not totally replace an engine they will only short or long block and that is it which I think is bull. Kawasaki is the better way for the warranty I think. Little harder to make claims but they stand behind the motors and will replace as Needed. Briggs they are just out there if u have a claim they like to send a rep. Out to see it and then make a call to replace or blame things on other people like the belts which goes back on the unit brand. If one of those would build a motor to last and perform and put a life time power train and engine they would pretty much rule the small engine world. They would be well known for the lasting product. But on the other making money is key to stay in business. The reason I think they are building them cheaper and cheaper is to put the small business owners and techs out of jobs slowly. It is cheaper to almost buy a new mower these days than replace some parts like an engine and even some carbs are $400 in cost before labor that is about a 1/4 to 1/2 a new unit brand new. So why not just let it go and replace the whole thing. It's cheaper in the long run.

The difference is now days you can computer model the engine so it is "just good enough to do the job".
Fourty years ago they had to make each variation in metal then test it till it failed, so it was cheaper to over engineer.
Thus the old side banger will run forever while the new OHV ones have a much shorter life.
And this is before the EPA forced them to run too lean & too hot.

That is right about running leaner and now efi which is even leaner and hotter not my first pick.

Before totally tearing apart the engine, you may want to pull the head and remove the lifters. They will flat spot on the bottom and will create a groove that will rattle, and sound like the rod is coming out in some cases.

Luffydog said:

I call it the ole famous kohler knock. No the synthetic oil won't help or least in most cases that I have seen. In most cases that I have encountered that it won't be to long and it will become a good boat anchor. Check the valves out and look to see of anything out of the strange. Some are adjustable and some not. Without engine numbers it's guess.

Click to expand...

Engine numbers...model CV460S, spec # 26509. This is a Kohler Command 16HP engine. Thanks for any further input.

ILENGINE said:

Before totally tearing apart the engine, you may want to pull the head and remove the lifters. They will flat spot on the bottom and will create a groove that will rattle, and sound like the rod is coming out in some cases.

Click to expand...

Can I get a service manual online...with torque specs, etc.?

Outdoorpowerinfo.com

I get most manuals from here ;-
http://www.mymowerparts.com/about_us.php
A good resource to book mark.
Click on the black Free Part & Repair Manuals then navigate down to Kohler Command.

You can also download a similar ( or same ) manual directly from the Kohler web page
https://power.kohler.com/na-en/engines

Then "manuals & service " then either type in your model number or just ferret around in the 200 odd pdf files which are a mix of owners & service manuals.

Sorry just seen the specs and jumped thinking about them and really didn't see the manual he was asking about.

bertsmobile1 said:

While it could be lifter with a leak so it runs down from time to time, they are generally very reliable.
The cam has a decompressor mechanism built into the bottom of it.
The rivets wear / break / come out then the little lever bounces around inside the engine till it gets jambed into something when everything comes to a rather abrupt stop.
The abrupt stop has a habit of knocking teeth off gear wheels or even braking the conrod.
Because the cam runs at 1/2 crank speeds, it sounds like a valve problem.
They pull apart veryeasily and the factory service manual is a free download directly from Kohler. What could be easier ?

Click to expand...

Would the situation that you've described cause the lifter noise to occur intermittently? The noise that I am hearing does not occur when temperatures are anything above 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Throughout the summer months...May thru August, this engine is completely void of any lifter noise, etc.

That is why I was thinking about switching from Kohler conventional oil to a synthetic blend oil.

If something was broken, or loose internally ..wouldn't I be hearing unwanted noise regularly?

Thanks