who's good with small engines (briggs on snowblower)

[EJL923]

Im looking for some advice on diagnosing a snowblower engine, a briggs thats on an ariens snowblower. Im very good with most engines, but small engines get me sometimes. It has lots of hours although its only 6 yrs old, probably close to 200 i bet. The engine smokes on startup, but you cannot see any smoke when its running and otherwise runs ok. However, it is burning oil. I may need to add 1-2 ounces every 3 hrs of use. This tells me its probably oil getting past the piston rings. It may be worn to the point of a rebuild or new engine. Does anyone have some thoughts on this? Stuck rings? Valve clearance? im at the point where if i cant add anything that may help the symptoms, i may buy a new engine. I did check the valves last year and they seemed ok.

Thanks guys

 

[Gotrek]

Take the head off and look for wear on the cylinder walls. Taking the head off is always easy and you can tell a lot from just doing that.

 

[EJL923]

Im going to guess this would require a new gasket, so i should order one

 

[Gotrek]

Possibly. Depends how careful you are when removing it


Briggs engines should have the carbon removed from the piston and valves regularly so your local shop should have that in stock.

 

[Highbeam]

There are all kinds of briggs engines. My mower engine is a very common one (vanguard?) with overhead valves and is well known for blowing head gaskets. It then consumes oil pretty fast. I had to replace the head gasket which wasn't all that hard and it fixed the problem. Cheap OEM parts online.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Snowblowers are the things I think truly deserve synthetic oil. They are only started up in the crappiest weather and then thrown into a heavy snowbank before they warmed up. The synthetic oil also helps to keep carbon deposits down.

 

[EJL923]

Synthetic is all I've ever used

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Shouldn't have ring wear then. Maybe the rings have rotated to where the gaps are aligned.

I doubt I'd rebuild or replace it though. I'd just check the oil often. I check mine each time I go to start it. It's cheap insurance.

I can buy an awful lot of oil for the cost of a new engine. What does your plug look like?

 

[Gotrek]

Briggs motors carbon up and need to be decarboniZed periodicly or else chunks of carbon can score the cyl wall

Remove the head check for scoring and check and make sure the gasket didn't fail between then intake and exhaust valves. That's a common failure point. While there remove the carbon

 

[EJL923]

I suppose ill have to order up some gaskets

 

[sportbikerider78]

My experience with them (as an engine tech in a small engine repair shop for 12 months) is that they are garbage.

I'd pull the plug. Look in and see if there is much in the way of carbon deposits. If there is, do a compression test and see if you are getting higher numbers than you should. If so, seafoam the gas and run it hard for a day. Then repeat.

How much is the engine really worth? If it was me, I don't wrench on small engines unless something big is going on. Burning some oil is not a concern to me unless it is constantly smoking. Not visible, not a problem.
It could go through that much oil for the next 10 years and you'd only have fouled a few plugs.

 

[Wooden Head]

You might want to check snowblowerforum.com They have a very good Areins area

 

[Gotrek]

Most Briggs have a decompression thing to make them easy to start so its hard to get good compression reading. Gasket should be at any small engine repair shop. Very common part.

 

[maple1]

My experience with them (as an engine tech in a small engine repair shop for 12 months) is that they are garbage.

Did you mean Briggs engines are garbage?

Think I would have to disagree, if so.

 

[sportbikerider78]

We will just disagree.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Regardless how you feel, what comes on the snowblower is what ya got.

It's amazing anything lives through the treatment a snowblower gets.

 

[EJL923]

I ordered a gasket set, it was cheap enough that way i can poke around the innards. Ill check out the plug too, see what that looks like. Ive read a few things about the breather giving problems, anyone know anything about that?

I dont mind briggs overall, but the Intek V Twin on my Husqvarna lawnmower is a little bit of a pain. Gotta replace the fuel pump once a year, takes forever to start, terrible air filter design, almost like they designed it to fail

 

[EatenByLimestone]

The breather is probably the gas cap. If it seals completely the engine can't draw gas into the carb. As soon as the cap is opened the vacuum disappears and then shows up when the engine pulls a hard enough vacuum in thegas can.

 

[maple1]

We've had all kinds of them here in all shapes & sizes over the years, no serious issues. Not saying they're fool proof or the best there is, but certainly not what I'd call junk.

Only issues with them have been fuel related, and a couple of fouled plugs.

Currently mostly it's the Intek twin in a JD ride on - in the summer. Only done oil changes to that. Just waiting for the weather to let up a touch before I crank up the Briggs on my Toro blower again. Had 3 weather events in the past week - 20cm, 60+cm, and don't know what we got today but has to be pushing 30cm. Been a tough week, and you're right - blower engines take a beating. Sits for long periods, then it's out into the cold & snow at WOT for sometimes multiple tanks of fuel.

 

[jatoxico]

The breather is probably the gas cap. If it seals completely the engine can't draw gas into the carb. As soon as the cap is opened the vacuum disappears and then shows up when the engine pulls a hard enough vacuum in thegas can.

Most 4 strokes have a crankcase breather to relieve pressure, mostly they run back into the carb for emission purposes.

 

[EJL923]

Most 4 strokes have a crankcase breather to relieve pressure, mostly they run back into the carb for emission purposes.

Yeah thats what i was talking about, i checked the hose for obstructions. I thought i read a blockage could cause smoking

 

[jatoxico]

Yeah thats what i was talking about, i checked the hose for obstructions. I thought i read a blockage could cause smoking

I've had oil coming through the breather on a couple engines. May be that's where most of your oil is going(?). Have an actual PCV or just a hose? You can run the hose to a container to catch whatever is coming out then run the motor and see if you're getting oil out from there.

 

[rwhite]

If your carb has the electric shut off solenoid those have been known to have a lot of issues. They usually get stuck open and fill the crankcase with fuel which the blows out the pcv valve. Often washing out the cylinder and fouling the air cleaner. As the air cleaner get more fouled it will pull oil from the crankcase into the carb through the pcv valve. Usually the best bet is to install a fuel shut off unless you want to try another carb bowl or solenoid. My mower been this way for years. I just clipped the needle off the shut off valve and installed a manual shut off. As long as I remember to shut the fuel off it doesn't smoke, use oil, and it runs fine.

 

[EJL923]

My snowblower doesnt have that, so thats not the case. Good to know though for when my rider starts giving me problems.

 

[rwhite]

Don't know if other motors are made this way but a lot of Briggs have the oil breather down stream of the air cleaner and with it being such a short run from crankcase to the intake the potential to suck oil increases as the air filter gets dirty. Maybe not so much an issue on snow blowers as mowers. They do sell small crankcase filters so that it can be disconnected and ran to it's own system.