MR-LT1K Refresh

[GM engineering room in the 70s]

"Here, i made some guards to guard your bumper that guards your grille that guards your radiator"

The bumper you got on your craftsman is interesting, definitely newer haha. is some of it plastic or is that just how its painted?

I like the retro looking decals you made. Are you going to paint the brush guard orange or something to match up with your color scheme?

BlakeGroce wrote:

Nice truck! Thats one clean square body. 75 or 76? I like the bumper guards.....people around here think they're ugly and throw them away so finding them is hard....idk why I think they look good.

The one pictured is a 78.

RichieRichOverdrive wrote:

[GM engineering room in the 70s]

"Here, i made some guards to guard your bumper that guards your grille that guards your radiator"

The bumper you got on your craftsman is interesting, definitely newer haha. is some of it plastic or is that just how its painted?

Yeah for a newer craftsman, but still a direct bolt up.  Shows how much has changed. It is metal with a plastic "accent" in the front.  Corners are rubber I believe.

Crazy_Carl wrote:

I like the retro looking decals you made.  Are you going to paint the brush guard orange or something to match up with your color scheme?

Thanks, I was going more for a retro look. I will more than likely repaint.  That center plastic part is "Riveted" in.  My rivet gun is messed up and I do not have bolts currently the right size.  Also, trying to determine if I want to go Black, Orange or Almond.

Then again, I thought about just leaving it Red and getting me one of those hitches the same color for the rear.

I like how it has a release to rotate the guard down so you can open the hood.

Past shot when I was abusing it a bit...  Some people hate on spicers due to being lightly built.  This one has been through the ringer..

MightyRaze wrote:

BlakeGroce wrote:

Nice truck! Thats one clean square body. 75 or 76? I like the bumper guards.....people around here think they're ugly and throw them away so finding them is hard....idk why I think they look good.

The one pictured is a 78.

AH nice I just guess by the grill. That's a nice plow setup.[/quote]

So, I finished my mowing today and realized I need to pull this back into the garage and give it some love.  I got in a position that I put the frame in a bind, it twisted a bit and threw my drive belt.  Yee haw.  Rear end has a terrible squeak that I fear is the axle in the case halves.  Maybe time for teardown clean, maybe some fresh paint and put it back together.  Also give the trans a flush and fill.  I've never done it and it's 17 years old now.  Also may need to look into new piston rings and head gasket.  Starting to blow some blue smoke the first couple minutes of start up.

Well, I brought it in and started tear down.  It needs some work.

First off, I would like the shake the hand of the installer that used anti-sieze on the engine shaft before installing the Pulley.  She fell right off once the bolt was removed!!!


The piston... she has some wobble.  The bore cross hatch can still be seen, no scoring.  New rings are on order!



She is tore down to for cleaning and repair.



One of the frame items for fixing.  The front axle has some SERIOUS negative castor.  The tires get caught up in the mower deck because of this. Amazingly that cross tie-rod is still in good shape.



The hitch plate is bent down as well.  I'll look into bending it back and bracing.  There are a couple cracks in the bottom corners.



I also am replacing the clutch pulleys.  They were pretty gravelly and noisy.

Another change I am planning.  I am going to put the rear tires/wheels that were on Bowser on the mower.  These ones worked well, but the back right one goes flat on me.  Not sure why.  When I do, I am going to replace the spacers with some lock collars so I can remove the washers.  They are getting very noisy when mowing.

I also plan on redoing the paint, she's going back to grey.  Probably the same color as Redneck.  I liked the color.

Also replacing the brake pucks.

Now I am riding the fence about rear tires.

* - Slap some fix a flat in the one
* - Install the Bowswer wheels/tires

2 cons for the Bowser tires.
A-Have to repaint the wheels
B-I forgot the tread was in rows, could cause a vibration is riding.



I think I just now talked myself into keeping the existing tires.


Fixed a lot of the castor in the front axle.



Tomorrow will pressure wash the roller.  Maybe get the lock collars for the rear axle. If not, then new washers in hopes to quiet the rear axle.

Also, not sure why, I really dread it but now would be a great time to drop the rear axle and refresh the grease in it.

Again it comes down to “If it ain’t broke. Don’t fix it.” Decided to not bust into the trans.

You should sell me the tires, they're the ones I've tried ordering twice (for The Warhorse ) from eBay and had them turned around at the border both times! ARG! Lol

Haha…

We’ll. I jacked the back end up took the wheels off and spacers and washers. Spun the axle and guess what. Squeak squeak squeak….



So that lead to…



One bolt stripped from factory. 


See that on the axle shaft?  Dirt buildup that combined with the grease. Hard as a rock. 



When I scrapped it out it turned to black powder. 



The dust seal on that side was shot. I found some nylon washers at the hardware store that appears to work. 
I don’t have a pic since I am not home at the moment but the gears are dropped back in. I’ll pack grease tomorrow and put the two half’s back together. 

Glad I ended up pulling it apart. That could have got really hot and either broke the axle or case.

State of the second refresh of the Craftsman in this thread.  I'm going back more "original" while I do it.  I have my gasket set ready for the engine teardown, but I am not ready for the piston rings.  I do not have them yet, they are due in Thursday.











Once I get my new brake pucks tomorrow sometime, this thing will go back together minus the engine.

I also changed out the rear spacers with PVC.

Allright, got my pucks in today so I got the transaxle finished. With that, I was able to put all the body parts back together.  I could have done that earlier, but it is so much easier to just wait if it is already apart.



As I mentioned, back a little-bit original.




I am on full stop now waiting on the piston rings.  They appear to be coming US Postal.  I might get them, and hopefully not bent.

I did clean up the deck a little and sharpened the blades today as well. I think my deck has about 3 years left in it before it goes full rot. I may have to scope out another one in the next year or so. Hoping for a good "marketplace" deal.

All the engine internals still look almost NEW! All but a couple rings on the piston. They are frozen in place it seems. The outer ring is loose like normal. More inspection will happen after work today. That would explain the oil burning.

ugh...  Thought the day was going to be good.  Then it wasn't.

Got the engine back together and reinstalled today.

Started it up, it fired right up.  Ran decent for about 15-30 seconds, then started to surge.  Continued to run it for about 2 minutes to see if it would self clean.  No go. Then it died.  I figured a good carb clean was in order as I didn't clean it post install as it was running fine before.  Fired it back up but it ran like the choke was closed for about 10 seconds and died.  Now all I can get it to do is backfire through the carb.

What I have done,

*Checked flywheel key, it seems good.
*Tore engine sump back off to make sure things didn't implode in there.  
*Timing dots are still good.
*Popped head off to make sure piston was good.  Still good and no scoring on the wall.  
*Checked valve clearance before taking it off.  That was good.  Pushrods are good.
*Checked spark.  VERY bright.
*Compression is Great.
*Seems to be getting fuel as sparkplug is wet.

At this point, I think I will go ahead with a carb removal and clean just to be sure that is ok.  Otherwise I am at a loss for the moment.

18hp B&S Intek Single

This sounds like my luck, try to do the right thing and have it backfire on me! Lol. If everything you've stated plus the carb are indeed good I can think of only one thing: the ignition module within the coil which is non serviceable. I'll admit I'm not familiar with the Intek engines but if it has a spark advance module like some Kohlers then I'd be very suspicious of that.

I don't have time today, but tomorrow I plan on cleaning up the carb.  I happen to think, a bug could have crawled into it while on the bench.  Also, I may need to look into that anti-backfire solenoid.  It could be restricting.  I did take the bowl off yesterday, and it was full of fuel and the sparkplug is getting wet.  Just a simple magnetron coil like all the other non-points briggs out there.  No advance.




EDIT: No I am not trying to start with the towel in the carb.  LOL

OK, I can start now.  I knew it had something to do with timing.  Here is one for you.  The flywheel key was sheered.  Somehow it was stopping on the keyway.  I finally caught it 180 off.  New key installed started right up but not running right now.  Ugh.  Almost like it has "too much" compression?  I'll re-check the valves again later.

Everything checked out.  Ran it for a bit "roughly" it idled fine. I don't have any carb cleaner or b12.  I did have some lucas so I shot about a 5 gallon dose in the carb, smoked out the mosquitos.  Then ran it some more.  Wife came out and we chatted while it idled rough.  Then it just clunk died.  I thought it was dead.  Tried to restart.  During restart, big backfire then it cleared up and was running almost perfect.  I'd say about 95% good.  Also, good enough to mow!

So... I got the LT out today after having a great report with an Eye specialist after having an accident weekend before last. One of ya saw that I was absent.
All is coming out well.

Anyway, back to the mower. It has been about 10 days since I started it. It still blew blue smoke on startup like before, still ran like trash, not 95% better as I mentioned in the last post. When it gets bogged in the grass it starts to knock pretty good. I have busted this thing open twice and see nothing amiss. I'm just not sure what is going on. It could just be a very tired engine. It has seen easily a thousand or so hours. When I was putting it up, it hard backfired again, ran for a couple seconds and died. I didn't even try to restart after that. I'm thinking it may be best to go ahead and swap engines with the Deere rear engine rider. I do not use it due to everything on it needs work. LOL. That may be a project here in a couple weeks.

It is done and I am pretty Happy with the results.



Backup engine deployed. Needs a little carb cleaning from sitting so long, but man does this thing rip through the deep stuff now. Even at 3hp less. I was also pretty happy the newer craftsman still had provisions for the old oppy plus it was mostly plug and play. Only had to make a charging cable extender and add a choke which the hole was already there.

After an hour mowing I lost spark. LOL Scavenged the coil from Redneck and finished up the mowing.

MightyRaze wrote:

After an hour mowing I lost spark.  LOL Scavenged the coil from Redneck and finished up the mowing.

This might be a little off topic, but what camera setup do you have there? Is that a off the shelf setup or the DIY perks webcam rig?

I have a handful of REOLINK security cameras. I like them.

New updates.  I'll try to get a couple pix tomorrow.

1. I ended up swapping the rears to the oselot tires. Got tired of filling then up and cutting grooves before I was done mowing. After removing and installing the other set of tires, I found the culprit.  These tires may not be too sturdy.  Only thing I can think of poking this hole would have been a stick.  Something it should have handled.  Now that I know what the issue is, I can plug it for later use.
   
   
2. I just could not get the 15hp opposed to run right.  Thing use to run like a dream.  Not sure what has happened to it.  Out with it and in with the Redneck 18hp engine.  Boy-o-boy does that engine run.  I was able to take out the thick stuff 6th gear 75% throttle and didn't even tickle the governor.
   

Update:

Went to mow yesterday and the starter made some noise not used to with this engine.  Carried on and I had to stop a few minutes later.  Went to get back to mowing and that cringy stripped starter gear noise.  I was like ugh, need to mow so I started tearing down the engine to put that last starter gear I have on hand on this starter.  Got the starter off and yep... chewed teeth.




Chewed teeth BAD!  Just because this does not happen to me that often, I decided to check out the flywheel gear.  Yep, chipped teeth.  I had no idea.



THEN.... to further complicate matters when I decided to pull the flywheel and put the parts one on, I realized my coil was missing a screw and it was dragging the flywheel.  Of the two screws to be missing, glad it was the one that was missing or the coil could have dug in and made more damage.  Instead it just drug on the flywheel.



Got the flywheel off and quickly saw that half the alternator is burned up?  Pretty bad at that.  





Back to the parts engine and snagged that as well.

Parts engine had a starter still on it, so instead of fighting to put a new gear on yesterdat, I kept that starter with its flywheel.  Old and needs serviced, but just strong enough to start the engine and finish mowing.

*Update... new starter gear installed on the starter.