John Deere - Briggs & Stratton Oil leak

[Richard001]

The photo of the engine mount area shows that one of the mounting bolts must have been loose. Notice the scuffed metal marks on the lower right mounting hole.

Also I noticed that the one harness is chaffing away. When you put the engine back in, make sure you put some protective covering on those wires.

As far as what else to do, I would remove all the cylinder shrouds and the fan shroud and make sure that the cooling fins are clean.

What does the spark plug look like? If the engine is burning oil, it will show on the plug.

Richard

 

[Neil B 1997 JD]

Sorry for my slow response. Life got busy over thanksgiving. Richard you are correct about the mounting bolts being loose, but that was several years ago when that happened. A couple of the bolts came completely loose, and the engine was moving around a lot. I installed a couple of new bolts and tightened up the other 2.

I have the engine on a work bench and had some time this afternoon to dig into it some. I have it disassembled as far as I plan to take it and have the oil sump pan off. When I removed the air filter assembly there was a large amount of gunk around the breather valve, so I plan to replace that gasket.



As you can see from the picture of the bottom of the oil sump pan it doesn't look like to me that the main seal is leaking, but I wonder if it would be worth the time to just go ahead and replace it while I have it all torn apart. Any thoughts? Somebody asked about the bolts that hold the sump pan on, they all seemed tight to me when I removed them so I don't think the leak would have been caused by loose bolts.



This picture shows the area of the pan where I think most of the oil was leaking from, and keep in mind some of the gunk has already been cleaned off. From here I plan to clean things up as best I can, replace the gasket/seals, and re-assemble it all. Is there anything else I should consider doing at this point?



Thanks,
Neil

 

[oldnslo]

The center picture on post #12 shows the oil pump cover. Brown round cover held on with three bolts. I would definitely replace the O-ring under that cover since this is a leak point that I have fixed on a few engines.

 

[Neil B 1997 JD]

The center picture on post #12 shows the oil pump cover. Brown round cover held on with three bolts. I would definitely replace the O-ring under that cover since this is a leak point that I have fixed on a few engines.

Yes, I plan to do that as well.

 

[RandyT]

The center picture on post #12 shows the oil pump cover. Brown round cover held on with three bolts. I would definitely replace the O-ring under that cover since this is a leak point that I have fixed on a few engines.

Also makes it much easier to install the oil pump driver if the cover is off. And to the OP the sump gasket will harden over time and crack and get sucked into the sump. Normally a 1-2 inch chunk will come up missing. Also Briggs had issues with sump bolts backing out on the older engines before they started using the dry thread locker on the bolts.

 

[tomplum]

Yes, clean and chase the threads plus use thread locker / primer 220 inch pounds. Watch the positioning of the old sump seal and plant the new one at the same depth.

 

[Richard001]

Looking at the bearing surface on the sump, it looks really good, so I see no reason to replace the oil seal on the crankshaft.

Richard

 

[Neil B 1997 JD]

I am pretty much to the point of starting to put things back together. I have cleaned up the parts as best I can and have purchased a gasket set that has all the seals and gaskets that I want to replace. I do have one question about that. The set came with the 3 crankcase gaskets (the gasket that goes between the oil sump and the crankcase), they are all 3 the same thickness, then there is one more that is a little thinner than the other 3 (which I actually damaged getting the package opened). Why did they give me multiples of that gasket? Are you supposed to use more than one at a time? This is where I believe that most of the oil was leaking from so, I want to be sure to get a good seal.

Thanks, Neil

 

[tomplum]

No, just use one. When Briggs packages 3 gaskets, the thicker of the 3 is the standard gasket. A normal gasket may be .015, then .010 and the thinnest like .005 - so you may be not able to see the small differences. The thinner ones are there to make up for wear in the block. You'll be just fine using the standard thicker gasket as directed.

 

[Neil B 1997 JD]

Well this is why I signed up for this forum - I am stuck! I went to re-install the oil sump pan and something isn't lining up correctly. There are 2 pins on the crank case side, that go into corresponding holes in the sump pan, but for some reason the pins and holes are not lining up correctly. If I get one pin aligned with it's hole in the pan, the other pin is off by around a 1/16" (maybe more). I did not ever remove those pins and neither of them appear to be bent. I can't for the life of me figure out how this could be happening, and don't have any idea how to proceed. I sure hope somebody has a fix for this.



Thanks,
Neil