LA125 Leaking Oil

[rdilauro]

I have a 3 year old LA125 purchased from Home Depot. This year, after draining the oil and replacing the oil filter, I started with an oil leak. When I was driving, I would also get alot of white smoke until about 3 days of using the tractor or about 2 hours wall time.
I drained the oil, replaced the oil filter again to check for any leaks. There was none. After driving it for about 15 minutes, the mower deck had a good amount of oil on it. Most of the underneath part of the motor and mower deck was covered with oil.
When I changed the oil, the manual said to add 2 quarts. I though that was a bit muich, so just went with 3 pints. I am losing oil, not alot, seems the most that gets lost is when I am using the tractor.
Now, from my car days, white smoke was never good. At times, that meant head gasket problems. I wonder what is going on with my LA125. Are there any diagnostic aids/tools that I can use to isolate the problem? Right now, checking the oil I am at the OK mark.

 

[jinman]

Too much oil will certainly cause an engine to smoke as will too rich on the fuel. Being an air cooled engine, you don't have to worry about another source of white smoke, engine coolant leaking past a head gasket. Do you think all your smoke is coming from the exhaust or could it be oil leaking on the muffler? I'm not crazy about the little bayonet cap on the oil drain. It might be leaking. Also, briggs engines have been known to loosen the oil pan from the engine block. Check a few bolts to see if they are tight.

The first step in finding oil leaks is to give the engine a thorough cleaning to remove all caked on gunk, oil, and dust. Once the engine is clean and dry, start it up and look for oil seepage around the valve covers and the oil pan. If it's only smoking out the exhaust pipe, then the problem is probably oil past the piston rings or valve seals leaking. A compression check is about the best way to confirm good or bad rings. If the compression check is good and you still have smoke, it's probably valve seals. On two cylinder engines, it is very uncommon for the rings to fail on both cylinders at the same time. When you run the compression check, if one cylinder is a great deal lower than the other (15-20 psi) on compression, then that is the cylinder to suspect. I don't know the spec, but if both cylinders are close, then the rings and head gaskets are probably good.