I fought the yard and, the yard won. My baby is all broken and I has a sad. 
I absolutely love this thing so I have already sourced three different Kohler engines on CL, you know, just in case. 
Is this a hydrostatic driven(drive shaft) or belt driven? time for a B&S 18-20hp v-twin swap ?
I keep reading the title of this thread as gardening goddess and then being disappointed...
No goddesses here. Updated thread title should help with your issue.
Sorry to see the old girl down. If your not trying to maintain originality, B&S or Harbor Freight motors. Belt drive should be fairly easy to mock up. I have some old Sears garden tractors, and a 1950 Ferguson TO20. Good luck with the refurb.
Ouch. I just used my wheel horse yesterday to carve away 4" of topsoil and grass with the snowplow for a walkway then pushed it to a low spot and graded it. Mine sat since 2 winters ago as it never really snowed bad enough to plow this winter. Quick hit on the battery charger and some gas and it fired right up and i ran it for hours. Beefy little machines.
This is a common problem, work it hard, don't check the oil, oil gets low, crank turns blue and aluminum rod end melts.
I'll be interested to follow this one. I (like DirtyDog) have an old Sears 10XL, myself. When I last used it it was grinding badly when trying to engage gears. I haven't gotten around to see what that's all about.
edit: Oh, Ha! I just remembered my 10XL is my avatar photo.
Clem, shifter forks might be the issue. Pull the shifter and see if you can line them up. As with any equipment, proper maintainence is key. I change oil, filters etc. twice during summer months, due to dust, grass and general abuse. I would think that's why they have low oil shut off on newer motors.
In reply to ClemSparks:
Make sure the clutch is releasing properly, frayed belt, failing idler bearings, linkage out of adjustment, etc. Old garden tractor gearboxes are all proper sliding gear crashboxes so it will grind like hell if you have any rotation on the driven pulley with the pedal in.
Ouch! Too bad about that old Kohler. At least when the rods let go they don't window the block usually. Those old Wheel Horse's are great little garden tractors though.
I've got a '78 Wheel Horse C-80. When the old 8 hp Kohler had so much blowby that it looked like I was fogging for mosquitos, I replaced it with a 13 hp Predator from Harbor Freight, back when the 20% off coupon could still be used on engines. $300 plus tax I was out the door.
As far as mounting it to the engine plate, all I had to do was drill new holes in it to line the drive belt up properly. I did have to trim the hood for the exhaust and air filter, and there is no provision for a choke cable (I got around that though). I cut grass sans hood for a while, but decided this is a working tractor, not a collectors piece, so out came the skill saw. The PTO linkage all bolted up properly too.
I've been mowing for 3 years with the new engine and it runs great. Even uses a lot less fuel than the old worn out Kohler. Never had a problem with it. With bar tires on the back, if you put it in high gear and dump the clutch, it'll yank the front wheels off the ground!
Good luck with that old tractor, glad to see someone keeping them running!
EastCoastMojo wrote:
No goddesses here. Updated thread title should help with your issue.
I fear my issue(s) may go deeper than the thread title but thank you.
I'm sorry about your tractor by the way. On the plus side it's well worth fixing. I love to see old iron that's getting used as intended.
I was a little surprised at this dramatic failure, I had just changed the oil, with the recommended straight 30, and the level was correct. This was the first run with fresh oil. It is a splash oiler so it is possible the new detergent oil loosened something up and it blocked the oil groove in the rod.
That is weird if you're sure it was full of oil and it wasn't running on an extreme angle or anything, the dipper must have broke off the rod cap. I tore one down that looked worse than this a while ago and I'm pretty sure the dipper was still on the cap, that one had less than a quart of oil in the pan and a worn out bore. Looks really clean in there, like an engine that never saw "non detergent" oil, which doesn't belong in any internal combustion engine.
damn,this is crazy, my lawn tractor just died today and is exhibiting almost identical symptoms. at least I know what to expect on the teardown now lol
The idea of the dipper breaking off interests me. The dipper was broken off the cap but that could be from the rod grenading. The unit is 50 years old and has a lot of use, it is possible that the dipper could have fatigued enough to fail. When I clean it up, I am going to take a close look at that break.
I need to measure the bore, if it is in spec I may just hone it out, clean off the crank and put it back together.
I really don't want to put a modern engine in it, even though it is a working tractor, not a display toy.
What I read... If it runs hot or low on oil, some of the aluminum from the rod will transfer to the crank, and then if shut off it might run fine again for a while. But the fuse is then light and even with fresh oil it will soon fail. It's kind of a cheap design, aluminum rod, no bearing and steel crank. But a zillion small engines have been made that way. A rodent nest in the cooling shroud will cause this kind of failure, or running low on oil or old dirty oil.
The design is not to cheap, this motor lasted fifty years of (based on wear on the rest of the tractor) hard work. A new k301 is $1500.
In reply to TED_fiestaHP:
More like if the aluminum (which makes for a fine bearing material BTW, you might even drive a car with an engine full of them) grabs that hard it just detonates the rod end immediately like what we see here, with an insert it'd spin the bearing and die a little later. I once bought an old go kart with a B&S light duty aluminum bore 5hp on it (which looks like a toy compared to an old Kohler) that was run out of oil and seized, I broke it loose, ran it to valve float for a summer and then sold it. I'm not sure if I even bothered changing the oil, I do remember mostly running it with used car oil (it burned a little).
I have dealt with one of these that did fail. I know someone ran it low on oil or ran it out of oil. Next time the oil was checked it was at least a half quart over full. So after seeing what was done, got it running and the oil was changed. It ran for a while, then while running just fine, bang, ting ting.
I got a new rod, rings, polished the crank, repaired the case, honed the worn cylinder and it then ran again. That thing was rather old and I am sure the designer never figured on it lasting that long.
I think now I would just get a replacement motor at harbor freight. It took a while to track down the parts and then there was the time to fix it. But it was kind of fun seeing if it could work again. I think it was a 6 horse engine on a lawn tractor!
Sniffing around the internet, Millers Small Engine Shop, Daves Tractor World, repairclininic.com, smallenginesuppliers.com You could try Steiner Tractor, they may help.
Ordered a rebuild kit(piston, rings, rod, valves, all gaskets and seals) from Pat's Small Engine, $92. The factory Kohler kit is $345, about $15 more than a rebuild kit for a smallblock Chevy
WhatistheWheel wrote:
The idea of the dipper breaking off interests me. The dipper was broken off the cap but that could be from the rod grenading. The unit is 50 years old and has a lot of use, it is possible that the dipper could have fatigued enough to fail.
Think of how fast the dipper is hammering on that puddle of cold 30wt syrup at startup. That's one reason I like to use a 15w40 oil where a heavy duty straight 30 is called for, the modern stuff can take the abuse and it will start circulating properly in a splash lubed engine sooner with less stress.
On the rebuild, I think a new (plastic) governor gear is recommended.
