building heat

Wednesday, marked three weeks since I mowed and things were gettin' outta hand. With over six inches of rain in the last two weeks there was just no way to mow. I had a one day window of sunshine predicted before more rain, so I had to act. About half of the yard still "squished" when walked on so I knew the Super C [regular mower] would cut up the yard in a bad way. I use a Cub Cadet 109 to "trim" and decided it was going to have to step up and do the whole thing. The 109 is just an old beater I picked up at an auction because it was too cheap to pass on. Its engine is pretty well toast and drinks oil, but the rest of the mower is good and tight and it mows with the best of em. I never intended to use this thing so I didn't give it a once over to really check it out. After mowing for a while, the hydro levers friction disk worked loose and it would run faster and faster unless I held onto the lever and regulated speed. When it came time to gas [and oil ] up, I pulled the center console to tighten the friction disk and this is what I saw! As you can see the airflow has been seriously restricted, and I suppose the reason the engine is on its last leg is because it has been run hot for quite some time. With the Kohler sitting inline, its hard to discover this kind of problem. I scraped the top half with a putty knife and turned the engine half way over to scrape the other half and decided this was a Kodak moment. Compressed air cleaned the holes so now it breathes fine. I wonder if there is any buildup on the flywheels fins?

By cleaning the grease and oil off the screen you have affected the balance of the engine. The bearings will go any time now. If you can, you need to find all the oil soaked dirt you removed and re-spread it evenly across the screen and this should place the flywheel close to it's original balance point. Good luck and hope it's not to late to save it. If you need any help I think I have some left over oil soaked dirt from the jeep engine you can have.