Kohler Courage SV-601 Does this sound like a knocking rod/other engine problem, or has it always sounded like this???

C

cmayo

Active Member
Troy-Bilt Horse XP/Kohler Courage SV-601

I'm nearly at the end of this DIY repair, thank goodness. I cranked it up today and am hearing a sound I don't recognize, but I do have a habit of after any repair, seizing on a particular thing (sound/vibration/behavior) that I'd just never noticed before and panicking because I think it's a new problem.

A bit of background, I posted earlier about my mower running at too-high RPM and no throttle control. I got that issue squared away and am putting things back together today, but... when my engine started over-revving, I was mowing and listening to my earbuds and have no idea how long the engine ran like that. Could've been as long as an hour, but probably somewhat less.

Anyway, the sound is on the linked video below. The knocking is only noticeable during startup and shutoff... when it's running it sounds fine.

 
ILENGINE said:
Check motor mount bolts. The shaking and knocking sound is typical at startup and shutdown and in some cases when the deck is engaged if the 4 mounting bolts are loose.
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Good thought, but I was unable to budge them so it seems like they're tight. Thanks, though!

Unless someone recognizes the sound as a problem, I'm just going to assume it's the usual chugging of the engine at low revs.
 
cmayo said:
Good thought, but I was unable to budge them so it seems like they're tight. Thanks, though!

Unless someone recognizes the sound as a problem, I'm just going to assume it's the usual chugging of the engine at low revs.
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The Kohler Courage is a dog. It has several problems and you can read about them online. Keep oil in it and run it.
 
Tiger Small Engine said:
The Kohler Courage is a dog. It has several problems and you can read about them online. Keep oil in it and run it.
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Noted. The original engine blew three years into ownership and was replaced with a short block under warranty in 2019. I've been babying this one along for six years and not looking forward to the day when I have to replace it.
 
I just went through all this nonsense with the identical engine. Thought it was knocking. After disassembly and checking all the tolerances, I put it back together. New gaskets even on intake and exhaust. Only seems to knock when starting and slightly when PTO turned on. I finally decided to ignore it and it seemed to somewhat go away. That was back in May and it's still going and doing its job. May have been to critical.
 
SOLVED UPDATE: The problem turned out to be a couple of loose engine mounting bolts. This was different from the rod knock symptoms I was reading about, in that my knocking smoothed out as RPMs were increased. With a rod knock, the knocking should have gotten worse with higher RPMs.

After watching the YouTube below last night, I went out and gave the engine a shove and sure enough, there was a bit of play (1/4-1/2-inch) and the clunking sound when it shifted matched the knocking sound I'd been hearing. I tightened up the bolts this morning (the front 2 were loose), and no more knocking! Yay!


2026-01-02_095100.jpg

 
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slomo said:
Pull one out at a time. Apply orange thread locker. Retorque per engine spec. Help the next guy out.
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Good thinking, I'll do that. Reading back over the thread I saw that ILENGINE called it right off the bat but when I checked for loose mounting bolts at the time, I was shaking the engine back and forth. By the time I decided to look again, I tried twisting the engine right-to-left and back and that's when I noticed the play.

Re: pulling the shroud, I only pull it when I have a problem to fix and have never found the head and fins particularly dirty, but it's an easy enough task so I'll start doing that at the first of every season. I've gotten ten years out of it so far and I've been DIY-ing all the repairs for the last five years or so, so I'm hoping that good maintenance will help me keep it going.
 
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