JD Kholer 23 HP Blown Head Gasket or Broken Rings?

georgia088 · May 17, 2017

I appreciate any help that anyone can give me. I have a 23 HP Kholer engine. It has been smoking a grayish blue smoke intermittently for several hours of use.
However, it got really bad this last use. I pulled it in garage and begin tearing down. I am assuming (and hoping) its a blown head gasket. I tore it down and looked at the head gaskets on both sides. I can't visually see anything wrong with either head gasket. However, I see a pretty good bit of oil in one cylinder and the spark plug was soaked with oil. Both cylinders feel great and smooth. If it were a broken ring wouldn't it scar up the cylinder pretty bad? Could these issues be caused by a valve seal?

Thanks.

Richard001 · May 17, 2017

Is this a water cooled engine?

What tractor is it in?

Richard

dfkrug · May 17, 2017

georgia088 said:
If it were a broken ring wouldn't it scar up the cylinder pretty bad? Could
these issues be caused by a valve seal?

In my experience, broken rings do not usually score the cylinder bore. Possible? Yes.

Bad stem seal(s) can indeed cause the problem you see. That is why a leak-down test
is done before you remove the head. Note that the head gasket also likely seals some
high-pressure oil galleries.

jabelding · May 17, 2017

Overhead valve? probably rings or valve guides on an air cooled engine. If water cooled you would see more white smoke from coolant and wet not oily cylinder walls, unless one of the oil passages broke through the gasket but not likely.

georgia088 · May 17, 2017

It is air cooled. It is in a jd L130. So although the cylinders seemed smooth as can be it could still be the rings? I'm not sure that I know exactly what you mean by the stem seals? Is this the same as valve seals?

tomplum · May 17, 2017

It doesn't take much to pressurize the crankcase. The gasket failure may be thinner than a pencil lead. They can vent even to the oil return hole. At this point you may as well get 2 head gasket kits and reseal it.

dfkrug · May 18, 2017

georgia088 said:
It is air cooled. It is in a jd L130. So although the cylinders seemed smooth
as can be it could still be the rings? I'm not sure that I know exactly what you mean by the stem seals?
Is this the same as valve seals?

The part of the valve that goes thru the head is the valve stem. There is clearance between the stem and
the valve guide. The valve stem seal keeps too much oil from getting thru the guide into the
combustion chamber. If you remove the valves for the affected cylinder, you can see if they wiggle
too much inside their guides, and if the seal looks bad.

tomplum · May 19, 2017

I've not personally seen a Command with worn out guides. But then again, I've seen a Courage twin with bad cylinder wear. Goes to show anything is possible. You could rock the piston crosswise in the bore. I suppose you could also change the breather plate gasket whilst you are there. That has been updated at least 4 times. The only problem I've had is an external leak myself. There are reed valves too which strangely will break once in a blue moon.