Hack: Filtering exhaust smoke
Continued from https://www.gassavers.org/showthread.php?t=10801
My Craftsman lawn tractor's Briggs & Stratton 15hp engine smokes. I finally gave up and brought it to a repair shop. Their professional opinion is that it can't be repaired for less than replacing the engine. Since it's a lost cause anyway...
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It's burning oil right?
I don't remember the ratio we used but I had a buddy whose tractor smoked pretty bad and we were able to help it some by taking a thick oil like 20w50 and thinning it out with some 2-stroke ashless oil. |
I don't know what's producing the smoke, it's white or grey. I'll try to get that info when I go to pick it up from the shop.
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Coffee can + mineral wool insulation.
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Where would I get mineral wool insulation? Google tells me it ought to be worth a try, but the only place I can remember seeing it is in large home appliances.
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Come on Man, are you serious? Sounds like a waste of time.
If that is oil smoke, which it sounds like, then it's shot. You can have it bored out, put an oversize piston and rings in (probably valves and guides too), and so on, or use it until it physically doesn't run anymore, or junk it. There are ways around shelling out the big bucks for a new engine. For example, I wrecked the 11HP B&S on a riding mower not too long ago. I hit the scrap yards and found a John Deere rider ready for crushing, that had an 11HP B&S in it, but it was stripped of it's carb and some other stuff. So what! My old engine has them! I got it for FREE and was VERY pleasantly surprised to find that long block to be a VERY low-hour block as the cylinder looked like new! Put it all together and that rider is now better than it has ever been in my ownership. Cost? I spent about $7 on gaskets. If you have a trade school nearby that does automotive machining they might bore it out for you. I've had that done in the past too. Then all you're stuck with is the cost of parts. Or there is scrounging around for a complete replacement engine. If you put yourself in the right place at the right time, they are free or nearly so. |
as always clencher, you are supremely resourceful.
i wonder if a wet wash rag would filter the smoke in the mean time. i'd ride w/ a bucket of water as well, just in case! :eek: |
OK if you're going to screw around, run the exhaust pipe down into the pail of water and make your own little fake "outboard and lake" exhaust.
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Sounds like the corpulent fraulein might be doing her solo right about now for your engine. If you're going to need a new engine soonish anyway, I wouldn't bother nursing this one, unless you expect to come across a deal on one given more time.
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How about running 90weight gear oil in the crankcase- I know someone who ran chainsaw bar oil and said it reduced smoking.
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I suspect that it will keep running for at least a year or two, as long as I don't care that it's smoking. I might have to check scrapyards. I'm looking at Craigslist for similar mowers with broken transmissions, missing mower decks, etc. Quote:
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Oil Cocktail
Those Briggs and Strattons are pretty stout, I had a 66 mower running till the 80's. They lubricate by splash oiling in the crank, course if you get snow, then you get condensation that sits in the cylinder wall and rusts out the bore. So the mix I like is 40% 20/50 synthetic, then 40% good old fashioned 30 weight, its thick, and finally 10% STP. Those Briggs engines can take some pretty thick oil, if that doesn't fix it keep upping the dosage, meaning 60 to 80% 30 weight and if you can find it, 40 weight. What were doing here is making a plug, just going thicker until nothing can get by the rings. And yes, back in high school a friend of mine ran 90 weight in their Dodge Polara, hey it ran.
Now as far as directing your locomotive exhaust, see if you can run the exhaust into the blade area. That way it will be defused into the clipped grass and give the lawn a nice breath of Co2, rather than putting it in the air, put it in the lawn, plants like that stuff. Come to think of it, in the 90's, I replaced the Briggs with a 2 stroke lawnmower that blew its exhaust right into the blades. It made the 2 stroke pretty quiet and hid the 2 stroke smoke by blowing it into the lawn. When I use to work on the tug boats, to catch blow by from the diesels, we used to take a 5 gallon oil can and fill it with belts of steel wool and run the crank case vents into the can. Finding steel wool, the best places we found were K-Mart and wood finishing shops, maybe Home Depot. |
Great ideas, Scott. I probably will only mow once or twice more this year, but in the Spring I may just try some of those strategies.
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run it till it blows, we have a 6hp B&S pushmower that has the nastiest knock and when its under a load it pours blue smoke but id be damned 7 years and still kickin, dont ever winterize any of our mowers either, all fire up in the spring with 4 pulls...(3 of em sit outsde under our boat and reguarly get rain and snow on em)
cant do much bout smoke control, if neighbors complain tell em to shell out the money for a new engine. have u tried runnin some seafoam in the crankcase? thru the carb? |
I disassembled, fully cleaned, and partially refurbished the carb.
I haven't used seafoam, but I did bring it to a shop where they did $50 worth of tests (more than I agreed to :() and determined that it's not minor. I live in a nice area with clean air, and that's probably as important to the neighbors as it is to me. Also, I have a good relationship with some of my neighbors and would rather not abuse it. |
personally being one who fixes other peoples mowers, i do not trust shops alot of the time. ive been "given" mowers that dont run or whatever i take about an hour to fix and its good as new, these are mowers that have been taken to shops and supposedly "looked over" and irreparable without major costs. a new 11hp engine is like 5-600 bucks.
seafoam in the crankcase can free up carbon gunk, ever try any of those "engine restorer in a can" type of things? could be stuck rings/broken rings yea like others suggest if nothing works put thicker oil in it. im guessing youve changed the oil, had one mower that would smoke, changed the oil and it immediately stopped...boggles my mind.. |
I changed the oil about a million times. I think the cause of whatever damage it has now was when the carburetor was overflowing into the engine while turned off, gas was washing down the cylinder wall and into the oil.
I really don't want to keep throwing good money after bad with this thing. I just emailed someone who listed a free 14hp lawn tractor on Craigslist with no rear wheels and a dead transmission...maybe I can get a decent engine for a couple hours' worth of road trip. |
yea thats the best way to get a "new" engine. or sometimes junkyards have well junk mowers.
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the worst thing to do is choke yourself out while mowing the lawn
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What about a plain-old push (no motor) mower? That's pretty much all I've ever used (had a nice King O'Lawn, but someone stole it). Actually, nowadays, I use my electric string trimmer.
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That would not work for me.
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