Seized engine - worth taking apart?

[SeanF]

Here's a little background on this thing first

I have a '08 Troy Bilt Bronco lawn tractor with a Kohler 18hp. Me being new to home ownership and maintaining outdoor equipment, I abused this thing pretty bad. It got its first oil change about a year after we bought it. I change the oil, but couldn't get the filter off. I finally got the filter off the next year I think. Anyhow, she was smoking pretty bad on start up (white smoke) and it seemed to be the valve cover leaking and the oil would gunk up right at the bottom of the cover, which is right above the exhaust.

I replaced the cover and gasket and I guess I didn't tighten it up enough. It apparently was leaking again and we didn't check the oil after the first few times of running it with the new gasket. I ran it, it ran but was lacking horsepower. I parked it and the wife hopped on the next day while I was at work and she noticed the same so she parked it. Thanks to ridiculously high temps (for Virginia) and lots of rain, I couldn't do anything with it. Went to start it about a week and a half later and it just clicked.

I should mention this thing sat outside several times, in the rain and all. The flywheel (gear? sprocket?) is rusted as well.

Starter is fine as far as I can tell, but I cannot budge the flywheel on the top of the engine, even with the plug removed. I tried some oil and also tried some PB Blaster in the hole and let it sit, but still nothing. I have a feeling it's seized up and will need to have internal components fixed.

People have mentioned it may have bent a rod?

I bought a new ZTR because we needed the grass mowed badly and I am not paying someone once a week to cut our 2 acres. I do want to fix this one though, if possible. It would be good to have two mowers anyhow IMO and it gives me MUCH needed experience in engine work for our other machines (ZTR, tiller, push mower, generator, string trimmer). For someone who is a mechanical newbie, but CAN learn with the right help (books, mainly), is it even worth me putzing around with? I don't have a garage, so the engine would have to sit in a shed.

Needless to say, this was a nice slap in the face. From now on, my stuff gets taken care of properly!

 

[fastback]

I would do a tear down. In this way you'll gain some experence and who knows you might even find out what is wrong and fix it. In the future probably the most important maintenance that can be performed is oil and filters. It needs clean oil in order to work...

 

[reynoldston]

Go to the Kohler web site and the have some very good shop manuals.

 

[SeanF]

Thanks for the tips, will check it out! And I have learned about the oil. I certainly knew it needed to be changed at some point, for some reason I figured it could go for a while. I know better now!

 

[possum]

Lets see. An 08 bronco and a Kohler Courage single cylinder mowing two acres with no oil changes and its locked up from low oil. Yes. Please, Please Pretty Please tear it down, look it over, see what has gone wrong, price the parts, and take lots of notes and pictures. Then change your log in name to Kohler Courage single cylinder and you will be very busy on here trying to explain why your Courage lasted through helfire and dangnation and everyone else who said they took care of theirs and they shelled out with less than 80 hours on them. After that you can tell everyone who has a Bronco that claims it falls apart just getting it from Lowes to the trailer how you managed to mow 2 acres for some lengh of time and it is still in pretty much one piece. You seem to know something that a good many do not about taking care of your lawntractor. Brush up on checking the oil and buy a filter wrench and I think you are on your way. I would not be bashful about the incident after all its in the past and I doubt the old Troybilt owned ya much. Please do become a regular on here with what you find on that Courage when you tear it down. Im going to be waiting on pins and needles. One more thing if you would allow me. Please do think it over and tell us how many hours this engine had on it and just how hard you ran it as well. Thank You.

 

[SeanF]

Lets see. An 08 bronco and a Kohler Courage single cylinder mowing two acres with no oil changes and its locked up from low oil. Yes. Please, Please Pretty Please tear it down, look it over, see what has gone wrong, price the parts, and take lots of notes and pictures. Then change your log in name to Kohler Courage single cylinder and you will be very busy on here trying to explain why your Courage lasted through helfire and dangnation and everyone else who said they took care of theirs and they shelled out with less than 80 hours on them. After that you can tell everyone who has a Bronco that claims it falls apart just getting it from Lowes to the trailer how you managed to mow 2 acres for some lengh of time and it is still in pretty much one piece. You seem to know something that a good many do not about taking care of your lawntractor. Brush up on checking the oil and buy a filter wrench and I think you are on your way. I would not be bashful about the incident after all its in the past and I doubt the old Troybilt owned ya much. Please do become a regular on here with what you find on that Courage when you tear it down. Im going to be waiting on pins and needles. One more thing if you would allow me. Please do think it over and tell us how many hours this engine had on it and just how hard you ran it as well. Thank You.

I have put this thing through hell for what it is. Like I said, 2 acres (2.2 actually). About 1.25 acres were corn fields until a year or two before bought the house. Hard ground when dry, muddy as heck when wet. So needless to say, the suspension has been through a lot. Didn't cut when it was soaking wet, but our grass gets so thick in some places. This house used to have an outhouse on the property - that area gets thick fast. A nice chunk gets a good deal of shade, so it stays wet when it gets tall. The first time we cut with it it was cutting down 5'+ tall grass shoots. It didn't cut well, but it cut. Wife wrecked a blade earlier this year, straight down into the dirt.

I always had an issue with how it cut, it always, without fail no matter how I tried to level and clean the deck, leave a strip near the middle uncut or barely cut. I suppose you are supposed to sharpen blades after you buy them and before installing for the first time? If so, oops. Anyhow, I have a short temper and it would tick me off how bad it was cutting at times that I would just floor it. Bumps and ruts in the ground and all. Thick grass and all. I dogged her. Now that I look back, it's probably a little surprising the thing has held up for being the bottom rung, basically. She wasn't driven this hard most of the time, just sometimes. Most times I would slow to a crawl through the thick stuff, etc.

Think I replaced the deck belt twice and the drive belt once and only because it was split so bad - it was still working though.

After cutting with the Bad Boy, I see how little mower I really had. We just couldn't afford anything bigger.

That said, had I maintained it better, and not dogged her so much, she would probably still be plugging along just fine.

As for hours, well you figure it takes ~5 hours or so to cut the yard with it, more when it's thick and overgrown, and we bought it in August of '08 - and we cut usually once every week, but we did skip weeks at times. Just average every other week from May-Sept so what around 12 weeks? 60 hours a year for 4ish years - so 240 hours? Give or take.

 

[SeanF]

Here are some pics of her from this morning. Will get a few more up, as well as pics of the yard to give you an idea of the size and what not.

 

[possum]

Thank you sir.