Motor for parts if anyone is interested?

[CoopsDad]

These engines blow head gaskets because they need cooling time before you shut off the engine

When you shut it off, If you hear creaking metal sounds there’s your head gasket getting destroyed

it only needs 30 seconds to cool down. Lower the idle and wait 30 seconds

yes a design flaw but easily avoided

I now have a replacement 19hp but still a single cylinder so I'll keep that in mind, thank you and Happy New Year.

 

[Boudreaux In Eunice La.]

Hello, I have a 42" Husqvarna tractor that had a 20HP Intek. single cylinder engine that only had around 200 hours on it. It blew a head gasket 2 years in then a few months ago after driving the mower in to my shed and not having to mow for weeks due to the drought I go to start it and nothing. My neighbor and I tore it down and could not figure out why it wouldn't start so after looking at used and new tractors I decided to just buy a new motor for it since it looks almost brand new any why scrap a nice tractor? I wound up purchasing a replacement 19HP B&S EX1900 that has the exact same displacement as the 20HP Intek and the exact same cover with a different decal.

The motor I took out is in the box the new one came in and I was going to get rid of it but thought someone might have a use for the parts or even the knowledge to fix it and use it. I can say when it blew the head gasket early on the repair shop I used told me it was a known issue and a faulty design B&S was well aware of, could be why I couldn't find any information on that particular motor when it went down back in September. The only thing I had to do was use the original muffler because the new one was too big I would have had to cut into the "hood" of the mower. When it ran it ran well so if anyone has a use for it I am offering it up to any takers. I am in Massachusetts but since it's boxed up I am sure it can be shipped, obviously the taker is prepaying for shipping. Here are some photo's of the tractor and both motors.

I don't know why but it won't let me upload the rest of the pictures but the one here is the motor I will be getting rid of if nobody has a use for it.

View attachment 62220

Either a bad ACR on the cam or a valve adjustment is needed , both have the symptom you described , but a bad ACR on those Inteks are more common than a valve adjustment ......

 

[The Road Warrior]

I operate a small engine repair shop in Louisburg, NC.
B&S is very well aware of the multiple “issues” with these model engines. I scrap on average a dozen (+ or -) annually. I’ll retain the carb, starter, charging components, muffler and push rods and scrap what’s left.
From a business level, they’re not worth repairing. On a consumer/diy level, they’re training experience.
This is another example of jokes manufacturers play on the American consumer.
.

 

[CoopsDad]

Either a bad ACR on the cam or a valve adjustment is needed , both have the symptom you described , but a bad ACR on those Inteks are more common than a valve adjustment ......

Thanks, I think the cam has been on continued back order but I could have never diagnosed that myself. It was much easier for me to go buy the replacement motor and get the one with the bad design behind me. What you state is probably easily fixed by someone with the knowledge makes me think I should be selling the motor now rather than giving it away?

 

[TobyU]

These engines blow head gaskets because they need cooling time before you shut off the engine

When you shut it off, If you hear creaking metal sounds there’s your head gasket getting destroyed

it only needs 30 seconds to cool down. Lower the idle and wait 30 seconds

yes a design flaw but easily avoided

It certainly is a design flaw and a refusal to fix it by adding an extra head bolt even if it would extend its tip slightly into the intake runner. I actually think we could probably drill and tap one and solve this problem but never really looked into doing it.
I will also agree that it is certainly a heat and cool down issue but I am not convinced that there's anything we can personally do to prevent it or extend the life of the head gaskets and I'm not convinced that idling the engine down for 30 seconds or even 3 minutes is going to benefit anything.
I'm not 100% saying you're wrong but I'm saying without testing and evidence we have no way to know and it's just a theory you have. I have a lot of those theories too from years and thousands of mowers and engines that I've worked on but it doesn't make all of them right. LOL
You could start with a non-contact thermometer to check some temperatures because I'm not convinced that an engine actually cools off when you idle it down but there's no exact linear action is the problem.
There are engines out there that when you're running them at their full operating speed actually run their coolest and they will heat up when you lower the speed especially after they're up to temperature BUT here is the real catch..... When you finally do turn the key off does the non running big aluminum heat sink block of an engine sitting there get hotter if it was at full running speed before you turned it off or if it was at a lower idle speed before you turned it off?
There is NO question it gets hotter either way but which way keeps it the coolest?
Also, other variables like oil level which can have quite a difference from being slightly over the full Mark how I always feel them. None of my engines are even at the full Mark they're always a 16th or an eighth above the full mark and sometimes a little more, or if they're down close to the ad Mark but still what is considered safe. Then there's also the variable of having fully synthetic oil or semi synthetic oil that could possibly keep the operating temperature lower during or after shut off.
Then there's the one other variable which I tell people is an absolute no no and that's for the people who get done mowing and are going to idle it down for that 30 seconds or whatever but they want to do it at the same time they're riding the mower back to the garage, barn, or shed.
NEVER do this!.
This can Spike the temperature even higher on the engine because it's still working and moving that 800 to 1,000 pounds of machine in person but it has no air flow for the cooling and it's also terrible on the hydrostatic transmissions because their fan is spinning at a third of the speed as it was when you were mowing and getting up to normal operating temperature and now you have almost no air flow compared to what you did have and you're still moving that machine which could be several hundred feet if you're riding it across the yard or field to park it.
This is not a concern if people follow my rule of if it's moving or mowing it needs to be at full speed.
However to find out if you can keep the temperatures cooler from idling it down once you park it or not we would have to do some actual testing.
I think that if we test the temperatures and then even more importantly had a couple of hundred of these 31xxxx engines to test with repeated heat up and cool down cycles, we would find it doesn't make any difference whether you idle it down or not.

My theory on this is that it certainly is from the hot cold cycles but there's not much you can do to that and what we do has little effect on it.
I do think that some of them that like to have to run pop in the muffler or any of them that otherwise backfire etc is not exactly good on the head gasket and helps push it over the edge and maybe keeping the oil full helps prevent this too but overall I think it's a matter of I think it's a matter of the number of uses.
I see these mowers all the time come in with blown head gaskets and only a small handful early on which is probably some manufacturing defect or assembly error. The vast majority of them have between 200 and 250 hours on them but more importantly they have about 9 to 11 years of use.
The average person in my area only plus between 25 and 35 hours a year on their mower and only those higher numbers if they're bagging leaves and mulching etc.
I've seen hundreds that fit this situation but I have seen a smaller percentage with hundreds of more hours with original head gasket.
My theory is that if you start your lawn mower and run it for 1 hour let's say once a week you'll get that 200 hours or so out of it before the head gasket has been wiggled around from the expansion and contraction of the metals etc and not having pressure in the middle where it blows from the lack of the extra head bolt before it starts leaking and needs replaced ...
BUT if you start the same mower and use it 3 to 4 hours every time you start it, you'll get far more hours (if you don't have to disassemble the engine for some other reason lol) before that head gasket creates a problem.
It's not that the design or the situation has a certain number of hours in it but more like a certain number of mows in it.
What saddens me is that Briggs did nothing to even try to fix the problem. The head gasket they sell you is exactly the same as the one that just failed before it. They could have simply put a metal firing around it I believe and would have helped the problem a lot..
Now for several years we've had aftermarket head gaskets that we didn't have for a long time. Much cheaper too because if you've been buying a lot of these you'll remember that the retail price of the lawn mower shop was about $6.48 just six or seven years ago and then one year out of the blue they shot up to 19.50 to $20.49.
I assume just because Briggs wanted to recoup some of that money they were losing because of all the predator, Loncin and other Chinese engines being purchased instead of their engines.
Then after 2 or 3 years of that the aftermarket was popped up on eBay and Amazon and now the price for Briggs has dropped down substantially at least it had until this new inflation and economy. I haven't priced them in the last year or so because I bought a lifetime supply of them at 6 bucks a while back.
I haven't actually used the aftermarket but from the pictures I've seen it doesn't look like it's much better if any. We know that usually aftermarket isn't as good but in this case it couldn't be much worse than the Briggs one.
Kohler on the other hand had a problem up until around 2003 with their command twins blowing head gaskets and they fixed the problem beautifully.
Not only did they issue a brand new head gasket which was actually a kit that came with head bolts or studs and other associated gaskets to take the intake and exhaust off and stuff like that to do the job but they also recalled every one of the original gaskets from their dealers so none of those old ones that weren't improved would be sold.
This fixed the problem 100% and I don't think I've ever seen a Kohler fail after having this new improved gasket put on.
It's thicker, has a fire ring if I remember correctly, is beefier all the way around with more complete coverage and more contact and surface area.
The only negative to the entire situation was you had to buy the kit and not just the gasket and that kit was almost 50 bucks per side whereas Briggs & Stratton was happy to spit you out another junk gasket for under $7.
Oh well, for those of us who know how to do it it's not even a 45 minute job. I can do them with my eyes closed.
Unfortunately, for the average consumer it's a deal breaker as is any engine or transmission issue with the mower.
At the average lawn mower shop in this country it's between 300 and $400 to get the head gasket replaced on one of these total price so it's not very cost-effective to do unless the mowers fairly new or in very excellent shape.
Even then you could get on marketplace or Craigslist and buy you a similar even newer mower for $450 to $600 that you can cut your grass with the day you buy it and then sell your mower which still starts and runs but uses some oil and maybe smoke some and needs a head gasket for at least 150 to 200 if it's in that good of shape.

 

[TobyU]

I operate a small engine repair shop in Louisburg, NC.
B&S is very well aware of the multiple “issues” with these model engines. I scrap on average a dozen (+ or -) annually. I’ll retain the carb, starter, charging components, muffler and push rods and scrap what’s left.
From a business level, they’re not worth repairing. On a consumer/diy level, they’re training experience.
This is another example of jokes manufacturers play on the American consumer.
.

You're absolutely correct. I also operate a motor repair shop and from a Time and Labor standpoint they're not worth doing these repairs.
Don't get me wrong, I've done a few but early on when I was less busy.
Now I will only do them for like really really extremely good customers or friends and family.
Mainly I'm talking about the camshaft failures as I can do a head gasket in 40 to 45 minutes with my eyes closed and I bought a lifetime supply of them at six bucks several years ago right after the price is jumped when I got a good deal.
Another problem is you can't really trust the ACR and these camshafts to last.
I think I used four aftermarket eBay or Amazon ones and the first three we're good and didn't have any comebacks or problems that I know of.
That doesn't mean they last at 3 or 4 years though because maybe they broke the next season and the person just junked the lawn mower.
But I do know that fast forward 4 or 5 years after those aftermarket ones popped out for you know $36 with the gasket kit and everything versus the 80 to 95 dollars for a bricks one that's just the cam by itself.. that I installed one for a good friend of mine and it only lasted 4 months and only maybe 8 mows at best.
When I inspected this one it wasn't that the ACR blew apart like the factory Briggs won't always does but the lobes on the camshaft just twisted around and made little clicky sounds because the metal was junk or they weren't tight enough when pressed on etc.
So I wasn't going to risk it since this guy wanted to keep this mower another 10 plus years.
I noticed that Briggs did change the part number and not just to another six digit number like they always do. They changed this to a very long number completely different than their typical numbering scheme so I thought and hoped that maybe the new one would be better so I made sure to get one of those which was about $86 at the best price we could get on it..
It went in and was fine for an entire season and it's still working fine so fingers crossed hoping for the best.
It's just not worth it for a commercial shop when you have so many quick no starts and 50 plus mowers lined up all season long to do the internal camshaft replacements. Even the head gaskets get a little taxing because I can do three annual services on a push mower or 3 and sometimes 4 no starts from fuel and carb issues in the same time it takes me to do one head gasket on a rider.
This is probably why their prices so high. I don't subscribe to the normal pricing and I never will.
I have not raised my prices at all in many years or because of this new economy etc etc inflation whatever and I won't!
I have two separate businesses and I refuse to raise my prices just because I can and because I can get by with it.
If my expenses go up and my profit goes down then I will simply have to do something very simple like one additional no start on a mower every 3 to 4 months..
That's an extremely small amount of extra volume to keep my overall sales and profit at the same level.
There are far too many companies raising their prices 20% 30% even more just because they can.
Sure, many of them have incurred some increased expenses but most nowhere near those levels and some have it incurred ANY increased expenses but they'll still take the free money because it's there for the asking.
People are way too complacent and easy to go along with it. Not me! I will not be part of the problem and raise people's prices just because I can either.

 

[CoopsDad]

It certainly is a design flaw and a refusal to fix it by adding an extra head bolt even if it would extend its tip slightly into the intake runner. I actually think we could probably drill and tap one and solve this problem but never really looked into doing it.
I will also agree that it is certainly a heat and cool down issue but I am not convinced that there's anything we can personally do to prevent it or extend the life of the head gaskets and I'm not convinced that idling the engine down for 30 seconds or even 3 minutes is going to benefit anything.
I'm not 100% saying you're wrong but I'm saying without testing and evidence we have no way to know and it's just a theory you have. I have a lot of those theories too from years and thousands of mowers and engines that I've worked on but it doesn't make all of them right. LOL
You could start with a non-contact thermometer to check some temperatures because I'm not convinced that an engine actually cools off when you idle it down but there's no exact linear action is the problem.
There are engines out there that when you're running them at their full operating speed actually run their coolest and they will heat up when you lower the speed especially after they're up to temperature BUT here is the real catch..... When you finally do turn the key off does the non running big aluminum heat sink block of an engine sitting there get hotter if it was at full running speed before you turned it off or if it was at a lower idle speed before you turned it off?
There is NO question it gets hotter either way but which way keeps it the coolest?
Also, other variables like oil level which can have quite a difference from being slightly over the full Mark how I always feel them. None of my engines are even at the full Mark they're always a 16th or an eighth above the full mark and sometimes a little more, or if they're down close to the ad Mark but still what is considered safe. Then there's also the variable of having fully synthetic oil or semi synthetic oil that could possibly keep the operating temperature lower during or after shut off.
Then there's the one other variable which I tell people is an absolute no no and that's for the people who get done mowing and are going to idle it down for that 30 seconds or whatever but they want to do it at the same time they're riding the mower back to the garage, barn, or shed.
NEVER do this!.
This can Spike the temperature even higher on the engine because it's still working and moving that 800 to 1,000 pounds of machine in person but it has no air flow for the cooling and it's also terrible on the hydrostatic transmissions because their fan is spinning at a third of the speed as it was when you were mowing and getting up to normal operating temperature and now you have almost no air flow compared to what you did have and you're still moving that machine which could be several hundred feet if you're riding it across the yard or field to park it.
This is not a concern if people follow my rule of if it's moving or mowing it needs to be at full speed.
However to find out if you can keep the temperatures cooler from idling it down once you park it or not we would have to do some actual testing.
I think that if we test the temperatures and then even more importantly had a couple of hundred of these 31xxxx engines to test with repeated heat up and cool down cycles, we would find it doesn't make any difference whether you idle it down or not.

My theory on this is that it certainly is from the hot cold cycles but there's not much you can do to that and what we do has little effect on it.
I do think that some of them that like to have to run pop in the muffler or any of them that otherwise backfire etc is not exactly good on the head gasket and helps push it over the edge and maybe keeping the oil full helps prevent this too but overall I think it's a matter of I think it's a matter of the number of uses.
I see these mowers all the time come in with blown head gaskets and only a small handful early on which is probably some manufacturing defect or assembly error. The vast majority of them have between 200 and 250 hours on them but more importantly they have about 9 to 11 years of use.
The average person in my area only plus between 25 and 35 hours a year on their mower and only those higher numbers if they're bagging leaves and mulching etc.
I've seen hundreds that fit this situation but I have seen a smaller percentage with hundreds of more hours with original head gasket.
My theory is that if you start your lawn mower and run it for 1 hour let's say once a week you'll get that 200 hours or so out of it before the head gasket has been wiggled around from the expansion and contraction of the metals etc and not having pressure in the middle where it blows from the lack of the extra head bolt before it starts leaking and needs replaced ...
BUT if you start the same mower and use it 3 to 4 hours every time you start it, you'll get far more hours (if you don't have to disassemble the engine for some other reason lol) before that head gasket creates a problem.
It's not that the design or the situation has a certain number of hours in it but more like a certain number of mows in it.
What saddens me is that Briggs did nothing to even try to fix the problem. The head gasket they sell you is exactly the same as the one that just failed before it. They could have simply put a metal firing around it I believe and would have helped the problem a lot..
Now for several years we've had aftermarket head gaskets that we didn't have for a long time. Much cheaper too because if you've been buying a lot of these you'll remember that the retail price of the lawn mower shop was about $6.48 just six or seven years ago and then one year out of the blue they shot up to 19.50 to $20.49.
I assume just because Briggs wanted to recoup some of that money they were losing because of all the predator, Loncin and other Chinese engines being purchased instead of their engines.
Then after 2 or 3 years of that the aftermarket was popped up on eBay and Amazon and now the price for Briggs has dropped down substantially at least it had until this new inflation and economy. I haven't priced them in the last year or so because I bought a lifetime supply of them at 6 bucks a while back.
I haven't actually used the aftermarket but from the pictures I've seen it doesn't look like it's much better if any. We know that usually aftermarket isn't as good but in this case it couldn't be much worse than the Briggs one.
Kohler on the other hand had a problem up until around 2003 with their command twins blowing head gaskets and they fixed the problem beautifully.
Not only did they issue a brand new head gasket which was actually a kit that came with head bolts or studs and other associated gaskets to take the intake and exhaust off and stuff like that to do the job but they also recalled every one of the original gaskets from their dealers so none of those old ones that weren't improved would be sold.
This fixed the problem 100% and I don't think I've ever seen a Kohler fail after having this new improved gasket put on.
It's thicker, has a fire ring if I remember correctly, is beefier all the way around with more complete coverage and more contact and surface area.
The only negative to the entire situation was you had to buy the kit and not just the gasket and that kit was almost 50 bucks per side whereas Briggs & Stratton was happy to spit you out another junk gasket for under $7.
Oh well, for those of us who know how to do it it's not even a 45 minute job. I can do them with my eyes closed.
Unfortunately, for the average consumer it's a deal breaker as is any engine or transmission issue with the mower.
At the average lawn mower shop in this country it's between 300 and $400 to get the head gasket replaced on one of these total price so it's not very cost-effective to do unless the mowers fairly new or in very excellent shape.
Even then you could get on marketplace or Craigslist and buy you a similar even newer mower for $450 to $600 that you can cut your grass with the day you buy it and then sell your mower which still starts and runs but uses some oil and maybe smoke some and needs a head gasket for at least 150 to 200 if it's in that good of shape.

THIS is why I just threw my hands up and ordered a replacement motor LOL

very well though out answer but wow! Happy New Year.

 

[TobyU]

THIS is why I just threw my hands up and ordered a replacement motor LOL

very well though out answer but wow! Happy New Year.

I can certainly understand that. I wish you the best with your new engine. Unfortunately, they don't build things like they used to and heck, these things were being built by around 95 or 97
And they simply weren't built that well. Lol
Anyone who is planning on keeping a riding mower for the Long haul like over 10 years seeing as hell they're going for about an 8-year replace it now for everything outdoor power equipment related at best, should familiarize themselves with some of these repairs and plan on doing them themselves otherwise the overall amount invested in a piece of equipment over that time will be cost prohibitive.
The head gasket is an easy fix that I can do in under 40 minutes but the average person can research up on it and with some help and guidance from people like on here or another mower forum can easily do it in an hour and a half or two hours with little to no expense. The acr/camshaft issue is going to be more pricey and I've stopped using the aftermarket ones after I had a failure and only 4 months even though the first three I purchased 5 plus years ago seemed to be just fine.
These things are at least 85 if not a little over a hundred bucks now for the camshaft itself and then you have to get a base gasket but you do not have to buy the brakes and Stratton stupid kid that comes with the 10 bolts that are extremely overpriced that list for over $30. They used to sell the gasket by itself but stop doing that. But there's plenty of aftermarket gaskets out there for a few bucks that work just fine.
I can do this job fairly quickly too about an hour and a half to hour 45 start to finish.
About the only real technical part is making sure you line up the dots on the camshaft when you put it back in and then the most important part is to remove the three bolts on the oil pump cover on the bottom and remove the little rotator star gear pump part before you put the base back on and assemble everything and you do have to make sure the governor oil slinger stays in its relative proper position when you slide the base on and tighten up the bolts. Then you drop the oil pump parts back in and put the flat cover back on with the 3 5/16 or 8 mm balls and don't over tighten them or you'll snap one of them off.
Then of course you have to set the valves when you put the push rods back in and that's minorly technical but even if you get it wrong all you have to do is remove the valve cover to do it again. It's not like getting something wrong inside the engine that the whole thing will have to come off and a part again or messing up something in the oil pump where it's bound up and you have no oil pump and it will lose lubrication and lock up the engine in under 3 minutes.
But for the average slightly mechanically inclined person, with some help, they can do these repairs and it's really the only two that these Briggs & Stratton singles routinely have and neither is catastrophic and typically once they're repaired they last a long time sometimes the whole life of the machine.
This way you can have a mower for 15 to even 20 years and have hardly any extra money put into it over the course of time.

 

[oldlawnguy]

You're absolutely correct. I also operate a motor repair shop and from a Time and Labor standpoint they're not worth doing these repairs.
Don't get me wrong, I've done a few but early on when I was less busy.
Now I will only do them for like really really extremely good customers or friends and family.
Mainly I'm talking about the camshaft failures as I can do a head gasket in 40 to 45 minutes with my eyes closed and I bought a lifetime supply of them at six bucks several years ago right after the price is jumped when I got a good deal.
Another problem is you can't really trust the ACR and these camshafts to last.
I think I used four aftermarket eBay or Amazon ones and the first three we're good and didn't have any comebacks or problems that I know of.
That doesn't mean they last at 3 or 4 years though because maybe they broke the next season and the person just junked the lawn mower.
But I do know that fast forward 4 or 5 years after those aftermarket ones popped out for you know $36 with the gasket kit and everything versus the 80 to 95 dollars for a bricks one that's just the cam by itself.. that I installed one for a good friend of mine and it only lasted 4 months and only maybe 8 mows at best.
When I inspected this one it wasn't that the ACR blew apart like the factory Briggs won't always does but the lobes on the camshaft just twisted around and made little clicky sounds because the metal was junk or they weren't tight enough when pressed on etc.
So I wasn't going to risk it since this guy wanted to keep this mower another 10 plus years.
I noticed that Briggs did change the part number and not just to another six digit number like they always do. They changed this to a very long number completely different than their typical numbering scheme so I thought and hoped that maybe the new one would be better so I made sure to get one of those which was about $86 at the best price we could get on it..
It went in and was fine for an entire season and it's still working fine so fingers crossed hoping for the best.
It's just not worth it for a commercial shop when you have so many quick no starts and 50 plus mowers lined up all season long to do the internal camshaft replacements. Even the head gaskets get a little taxing because I can do three annual services on a push mower or 3 and sometimes 4 no starts from fuel and carb issues in the same time it takes me to do one head gasket on a rider.
This is probably why their prices so high. I don't subscribe to the normal pricing and I never will.
I have not raised my prices at all in many years or because of this new economy etc etc inflation whatever and I won't!
I have two separate businesses and I refuse to raise my prices just because I can and because I can get by with it.
If my expenses go up and my profit goes down then I will simply have to do something very simple like one additional no start on a mower every 3 to 4 months..
That's an extremely small amount of extra volume to keep my overall sales and profit at the same level.
There are far too many companies raising their prices 20% 30% even more just because they can.
Sure, many of them have incurred some increased expenses but most nowhere near those levels and some have it incurred ANY increased expenses but they'll still take the free money because it's there for the asking.
People are way too complacent and easy to go along with it. Not me! I will not be part of the problem and raise people's prices just because I can either.

TobyU very well said. Thanks for sharing all of your findings based on 1000s of engines! Happy New Year!

 

[mmoffitt]

Are sheep any more reliable...or they have problems too!!!
Love all the info really enjoy the site thank you to all the "old timers" who know their business!