Is the Kohler Courage really that bad?

[bertsmobile1]

I am not trying to be critical of you and your are quite correct in that you should have been advised about this problem.
Honda appears to be the only company that actually does this and then it is only for the customers who complete the product registration.
I have never bought a new mower and have no plans to ever do so in the future so have no idea as to weather companies like Kohler actually keep customer records for the purpose of recalls & service advise notifications.

OTOH the mower should have been checked every time before use.
And if that was done the little sparkling fragments of the ground down bolts would have been clearly obvious.
When the crack first started a significant amount of oil would have started to leak out of it and that should have been obvious as well.
Apart from the visual the sound of the bolts being ground down should have been enough to alert you something was wrong.
It takes a long time for the bolts to back out enough to contact the flywheel and a simple turning of the flywheel by hand will produce a lot of grinding noise and be substantially more difficult like the mower was having a hydraulic lock.

You say the engine is beyond repair so there must be a lot more damage than just the crack.
The mower I am doing right now belong to a sporting club and had less than 100ml of oil left in the engine .
There was only a few dribbles of oil on the floor where it is parked so I would assume that they had been mowing the 2 acre of the field every week with almost no oil in the engine.
SO if yours blew up you must have been running with the crack for a long time.

The previous one I did belongs to a contractor and he noticed that after about 1.5 hours of use the engine would cut out which is why he brought it in for service thinking he had a fuel pump problem.
I noticed the oil was low so topped it up and mowed for 2 hours with no problems apart from running low on oil again which was tracked down to leaks from the crack.

So if you have totally destroyed your engine then you have not been taking as good care of it as you think you are.

 

[87nassaublue]

I'm sorry, but if you have to go to that much effort to keep the engine from self destructing, it's just not a quality engine. Any engine that is expected to crack, dump oil and have catastrophic failures when used for the purpose it was intended for is a POS.

 

[YLG80]

@ bertsmobile1
Thanks for the information on Honda. For sure they have the company culture as in Toyota (TPS)
Husqvarna is also doing that if you have registered your product.

The symptoms you described in your last post are describing exactly what happened to me.
When I've detected the oil leakage, it was already too late for the crack.
I've observed also a noise difference, but that change comes very gradually I suppose.
I guess it starts with a small leakage increasing when the top engine cover screws are becoming very loose.

I'm not completely sure that the engine is fully destroyed. I will open it later, likely during the winter.
There was still a good compression when I've tried to start the engine and before something broke inside.
The problem could be that device used to maintain the exhaust valve slightly opened when starting the engine.
For sure there is something broken that prevents the valves to work correctly.
I will check that later, because the first thing to do is to restart my Toro.
The grass will not wait for me to grow !

Anyway it is really very easy to replace the Kohler SV590S 19HP by a brand new B&S Intek engine.
I just need to make the electric connections and I'm back to the mowing job.
The rest is fully compatible.(bolting pattern, crankshaft dimension, fuel piping, throttle/choke etc ... )
The only thing that needs to be changed is the muffler. Or perhaps the original could be used with an homemade adapter.

BTW I agree with 87nassablue.
Before the first thing to die was the mower deck.
The engine was still very good and could be transplanted on another device, or sold, or used for something else...
Now the engine dies first !
For me, my mower is a tool that should work about 75-80 hours per year with a normal maintenance during the season and a winter maintenance/cleanup
without having to dismantle everything to detect cracks or other odd failures.


PS
When the Toro did not start, I've restarted a very old 1989 MTD, no longer used. It has a 12HP B&S engine.
No problem to start the engine and no problem to mow.
The deck is very rusted with holes which is the reason why we are no longer using that tractor.
I hope that the Intek engine will be as good as that old engine.
No sure though, for the reasons you mentioned before.:laughing:

 

[bertsmobile1]

IT all comes down to price.
Mowers are very very very cheap, in real terms.
Part & parcel of that is the adoption of the Ford principle.
Everything is downgraded to the life of the most vunerable part so it all falls apart together thus you will replace it.
Computers have allowed this to be taken to a very fine level.
Thus almost no modern mower will have sound major componants worth keeping.
The Kohler Krack seems to be quite random, some do some don't.
For me it is a no brainer as I always remove the cooling shroud to clean the fins as part of a regular service, so it is 30 sec more to slip a spannar on the bolt heads.

If there is no major damage , I drill about 5mm ahead of the visible root of the crack then grind out the crack from each side with V cutter in my Dremel tool and then fill the crack from both sides with either POR 15 filler or Devcon filler.
They seem to work very well if the top plate still has clean bolt holes.
IF the holes flogged out oval then it gets replaced.
Some of these have been running 3 years without fail another couple have needed to be redone as the filler I used on them was not up to the job.
I charge $ 400 + parts for this which is a lot quicker & easier to do than it sounds as the only internal part removed in the exhaust cam and you can do it with the engine still in the mower provided you remove both of the belts.

The mower came with an intek as the standard engine, then the Kohler was the upgraded engine on the Briggs and the kawakasi was the top shelf option.
IF you fit the Briggs , please put a fuel tap in the fuel line.
The carb is not particularly good and the float valve leaks fuel into the engine which will blow the head gasket which is a very weak link in that engine design.
If it is a brand new intek, pull the rocker cover off, clean off all the silicon then fit a gasket so you can do a valve adjustment very easy.
PIA to clean off the silicon in situ, then run a new bead and bolt it up gain knowing that you should be repeating this every 2 to 3 years.
Old rocker covers have a sealing ridge in them to make a better seal on the gasket, new ones don't ( cheaper to make ).
A thin wipe of heavy wheel bearing bentonite grease on the gasket before it goes on will allow it to be stripped several times without damage.

 

[YLG80]

If there is no major damage , I drill about 5mm ahead of the visible root of the crack then grind out the crack from each side with V cutter in my Dremel tool and then fill the crack from both sides with either POR 15 filler or Devcon filler.
They seem to work very well if the top plate still has clean bolt holes.

This is exactly what I did with the Kohler engine. I've used a high pressure and temperature dual components filler.
Thanks also for your advice on the B&S Intek engine.

 

[Southland]

I have a Courage 22 V-Twin, SV715, build date of 10/8/2007 with 300 hours on it. It's on a Troy-Bilt zero turn mower. I have not had any problems with it. I live in the south with hot summers and only use full synthetic oil. My only complaint with the engine is that I hate the air filter. The prefilter is useless since it is not a very tall filter.

 

[bertsmobile1]

You can replace it with a bolt on donaldson remote filter.
The same one as fitted new to the commercial Kawakasi engines.
An excellent filter and worthy upgrade.
The fiters are not much more expensive than the genuine Kohler item and everyone who does aftermarket parts has a replacement.
THE fitting kit is he only problem as it makes removing the blower housing tedious.
I move it , remote to the engine and fit a longer ducting.

 

[Southland]

You can replace it with a bolt on donaldson remote filter.
The same one as fitted new to the commercial Kawakasi engines.
An excellent filter and worthy upgrade.
The fiters are not much more expensive than the genuine Kohler item and everyone who does aftermarket parts has a replacement.
THE fitting kit is he only problem as it makes removing the blower housing tedious.
I move it , remote to the engine and fit a longer ducting.

Do you have the parts number that you used as a replacement? Or photos? I did a search, but couldn't find the right items.

Thanks.

 

[bertsmobile1]

This is the bad kit which has the filer attached to the blower housing.
Easy to install but makes the blower housing difficult to remove so you never take it off to clean the engine & cook the heads

http://www.gaspares.com.au/program/OptionsOnline.cgi?TARGET_FORM=DETINFO&stockcode=KAWKIT2&CRUMB=09700832&GROUP=KAWP%20AIR%20KITR
remove the KAW from the front of the part numbers and you have the actual Kawakasi part number.

Google those numbers to find aftermarket alternatives . Kawwaka parts are very expensive.
The small images at the bottom are the two filter elements.
You change the larger outer about 4 times for every inner.
Most skid steers & big commercial mowers use this filter.

Off a rival forum a thread with lots of info & photos of installed filters.
http://www.lawnsite.com/threads/donaldson-air-filter-kit-upgrade-for-kohler-25-hp.35628/

OFf USA evilbay.
http://http://www.ebay.com/itm/DONALDSON-AIR-CLEANER-ASSEMBLY-Z-TURN-DIXIE-CHOPPER-MOWER-/172404006761?hash=item2824145f69
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DONALDSON-MILITARY-COMPLETE-AIR-CLEANER-FILTER-ASSEMBLY-HOUSING-900CFM-/331508469331?hash=item4d2f71ce53
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DONALDSON-AIR-CLEANER-G065424-Never-Used-with-New-Air-Filter-/272443095823?hash=item3f6edfbb0f
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Donaldson-G082525-Air-Filter-Housing-with-Filters-/152024016521?hash=item2365566689


And the Donaldson web site
https://www.donaldson.com/en/engine/filters/products/air-intake/cleaners.html

 

[nicky1]

I have read all the pages of this conversation and just wanted to add to it. I have a 2007 Cub SLT1550 with the Courage SV730 engine in it. It has 700 hrs on it and so far I have had no major problems with it. I change oil and filter every 50 hrs [ I use Tractor Supply 30 HD ], a little MMO in each change and occasionally a little amount of Seafoam in the gas tank. I keep the tractor and engine clean and occasionally I take off the plastic engine shroud to blow the dust from under the flywheel and clean the air fins.It has no oil leaks and runs as good as it did when new.
The only problem I have had with it is hard starting. The starter doesn't have enough torque to turn the engine past the compression stroke when cold. I have Installed a bigger CCA battery. All cables and connections are tight and in good shape. There seems to be an argument as to whether this engine has ACR or not. I have done the valve adjustment and it didn't help. It may explode tomorrow but otherwise it's been a good machine.
Anyway just my 2 cents worth, nicky