Intekatastrophe!

[60dgrzbelow0]

By now...you've met most of my immediate neighbors in one way or another via some of my recent Off Topic Posts and those all concerned unique vehicles of one kind or another... But this one involves the neighbor to my left who is one sad soul in so many ways. Here is a man who keeps getting kicked in the teeth by Life and who is ill-equipped because of his having "Chemo-Brain" while dealing with a recent bout of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.

In short... Bob "S" can't do anything without getting in trouble...and in this example you'll all understand why this keeps happening. Now since I treat all of my neighbors with decent respect...I can't isolate Bob from the help I so willingly give to the others...and perhaps because he often even needs it even more so than they.

The latest tragedy to befall this man is that he was talked into buying a 24HP Craftsman 42" Wide Dual-Blade Riding Lawnmower...to cut the grass areas around his Brookesville home... an area that approximates the size of a f*cking postage stamp! In any case... Bob called me up to complain that his Riding LM was not working right...actually...not working at all. He explained that he and some other local redneck neighbor in Brookesville, Florida (his Mom's Home) decided to take a 6" section of galvanized pipe with an elbow and a plug...and screw this apparatus into the drain hole in the lower right side of his $1,422.29 V-Twin Briggs and Stratton Intek Engine (B&S Factory Replacement Engine value). Now this all might have turned out okay...had Bob only wrapped some Teflon Plumbing tape...or put some thread sealer on the plug...and no one would be unhappy today... But that didn't happen. It probably took the better part of a week or two for most of the oil to drip drain from that damned loose fitting plug... but it certainly all left the crankcase in its own good time. And soon after...Bob decided that before the Fall gets here and he loses the opportunity to cut his little patch of grass...just one more time... He jumped in the saddle of his Rider...cranked up the engine to about 4,000 RPM...and did this to it:

http://s557.photobucket.com/albums/ss19/60dgrzbelow0/INTEKATASTROPHE/

Anyhoo... I listened patiently to my friend...and told him to trailer the whole rig down to his 'soon-2-b-ex-wife's' house next door to me...( Yes...even she is abandoning this poor slob) and said that I would help him look into the problem. As you can see from the images...with all the major components so badly damaged...including the Main Case having a cracked #2 Cylinder at the bottom and the webbing in the block that houses the Camshaft support/oiling journal in the webbing all cracked and swollen...This motor is a complete bust for repair. But even a tale as sad as this one can have a Silver Lining. Last night... I "lurked" over on eBay and stumbled over a Briggs and Stratton 27HP Intek match to his motor and managed to snag the motor for $360.00 with Free S&H for the guy. At the very least... come Spring ...Bob will be cutting his little grass patch; Riding High on his Craftsman Riding Lawn Mower again...

[robertisaar]

that's one FUBAR'd motor... the way that cam twisted is sick.

[asylummotorsports]

Craftsman huh?

You could probably return it, get a refund, and Sears would apologize for the inconvenience!

But it sound like you did the safe and right thing.

KUUDO'S!!

[60dgrzbelow0]

Con-Rods made of BUTTER!

Craftsman huh?

You could probably return it, get a refund, and Sears would apologize for the inconvenience!

But it sound like you did the safe and right thing.

KUUDO'S!!

You have the right idea entirely, Eric... I investigated that very possibility that some vendors sort of 'GrandFathering' in an additional year on the warranty... But it turns out that B&S had some involvement in that situation and not the various sub-vendors of the myriad tractors and in this instance... the commercial line of garden/brush/grass cutting equipment. This ruined engine was over a year out of warranty as well.

If you look at the top of the Intek I lucked out in finding for him..you'll see a Husqvarna Logo on the top of the same kind of engine... Everybody and there brother in need of some serious horsepower married to anything that cuts...these "Extended Life" engines are right in the middle of it all.

What troubled me the most after I hit the center of the bottom of the crankshaft with a Dead-Blow Hammer to separate the casings and saw that pile of shattered aluminum "I" Beams from both of the ConRods was remembering how incredibly heavy the flywheel on this engine is...and thinking, "How in God's Name ...can Briggs build an engine like this... knowing that a HUGE amount of torque will be developed... using connecting rods entirely made of nothing more than soft Cast Aluminum?!" I have yet to make a closer examination of all that Metal Mung I fished out of the lower cases to determine if they even used any kind of Babbitt bearings in between the rods and the dual-wide crankshaft journal. The more I think about it...all the stuff giving the crank that silvery mottled appearance is probably just melted Aluminum!

If I'm not mistaken ...these engines are also very popular with Go-Kart enthusiasts... hence the almost impossible task of finding cheap replacement parts for the motor.

[pmaniac69]

everything on a briggs motor is aluminum except the crank, and the flywheel really, but they are just like any other motor out there, they don't like running without oil!

Everybody disses briggs and I will never understand why, I love thier design over honda and Tecumseh any day of the week, they are easy to work on, and never have as many problems as Tecumsehs do (even though they are out've buisness now)

I've been working on small engines for over 5 years for a living, and I'll take a briggs over a honda any day of the week

[60dgrzbelow0]

A Return to The Scene of the Crime...

For a quick view of the Connecting Rod reconstruction images...Please use this link...

http://s557.photobucket.com/albums/ss19/60dgrzbelow0/INTEKATASTROPHE/

...everything on a Briggs motor is aluminum except the crank, and the flywheel really, but they are just like any other motor out there, they don't like running without oil!

Everybody disses Briggs and I will never understand why. I love their design over Honda and Tecumseh any day of the week. They are easy to work on, and never have as many problems as Tecumsehs do (even though they are out of business now). I've been working on small engines for over 5 years for a living, and I'll take a Briggs over a Honda any day of the week

I believe that your understanding of how this engine came apart is profound. The images posted here are proof that oil starvation was the cause and origin of the cascade of excessive friction between the conrod bearing surfaces and the main crankshaft journal. Metal fatigue of the weak aluminum soon followed...and when the contacting parts could not take the stress any longer...the conrods broke into pieces that went into other gearing areas where the camshaft meshed with the crankshaft gear. When this happened, the camshaft bent dramatically and while rotating... the lobes made contact with one of the cylinders and broke out a piece of the lower cast iron sleeve. The warped and bent camshaft continued to rotate enough to shatter the upper case oiled journal like a twist drill and broke that area apart enough to dislodge the gear teeth from the ones on the crankshaft. But by then... the damage was done... and so was this motor.

I'm happy to defer to your knowledge and empirical experience with the Briggs and Stratton line of engines. So, you'll get no 'dissing' from me in the general sense about the design of this V-Twin motor. It really is quite a remarkable design. But to do so much in the way of making this engine work and then fail to use either a cast, powder metal or forged steel connecting rods in lieu of aluminum ones having NO BEARINGS, is to me is just a sin. Either the folks at Briggs are hugely short-sighted...or just plain sinister for the sake of "planned obsolescence" to guarantee that expensive repairs on these engines are just inevitable. Had the rods been made of "Stronger Stuff", so much additional and destructive damage could have been avoided.

Imagine what a Superman of a Motor this engine could have been if they would have included two, self-lubricating bronze bearings to support the crankshaft instead of using only one in the lower Sump case... and with steel conrods, they could have easily doubled their HP output with some tweaking of the timing and compression. My God...this thing not only has a genuine gear within gear driven oil pump... but also sports a centrifugal oil slinger like the ones used on radial aircraft engines! To do so many clever things and go cheap on the one metal item that must change direction hundreds of times a second and get pounded with hundreds of thousands of pounds of force... is just plain STUPID!

My reconstruction images (the best I could manage with what was left) can be seen here:

http://s557.photobucket.com/albums/ss19/60dgrzbelow0/INTEKATASTROPHE/

[Superdave]

everything on a briggs motor is aluminum except the crank, and the flywheel really, but they are just like any other motor out there, they don't like running without oil!

Everybody disses briggs and I will never understand why, I love thier design over honda and Tecumseh any day of the week, they are easy to work on, and never have as many problems as Tecumsehs do (even though they are out've buisness now)

I've been working on small engines for over 5 years for a living, and I'll take a briggs over a honda any day of the week

x2, i was a small engine mechanic for many years and briggs engines were always nice to work on. I also built many into decently performing go cart race engines.

[60dgrzbelow0]

Good News.... Amazingly...in less than two days...the eBay replacement engine I grabbed for Bob showed up this evening... Well packed and in excellent shape (externally...so far) On Friday... I'll swap this B&S Intek 27HP Used Motor onto the Craftsman Mower...and hopefully... after changing the Oil/Air Filters...filling up the crankcase and Oil Filter, too with fresh, quality motor oil and turning the engine over a few time without the plugs in (new ones to go in)..We'll fire it up...and see how it behaves... Fingers Crossed...as he is stealing this engine if its a good one for only $360.00 ....

http://s557.photobucket.com/albums/ss19/60dgrzbelow0/INTEKATASTROPHE/

[pmaniac69]

the problem with the v twin engines is that they NEED to be full of oil at all times, they aren't like they old slinger or dipper oil systems which, even if its somewhat low, there is still oil getting thrown somewhere

the v twins have an oil pump, and if the oil isn't where its supposed to be, this is what happens. I had the same thing you did on a 14 horse v twin horizontal shaft, it was approximately a quart low on oil, and the customer was complaining about it making a NASTY sound. I took the cover off and the connecting rod for the right had side (being behind the motor) had shattered, and destroyed the main journal on the crank, but somehow, miraculously, still ran on one cylinder lol

I had to warranty it, I told my briggs rep about 5 times that it shouldn't be warrantied because the customer did not pay attention to his oil level, they didn't care, they told me a short block was on the way.

I'll tell you what though, work on a few Tecumseh's, I think you'll love briggs over them, Tecumseh's ALWAYS leak oil from SOMEWHERE, always knock like they are about to explode, and they LOVE to snap the crankshaft where the flywheel nut goes on.....oh, and thier primer system SUCKS A$$

I always find myself fixing an oil problem on a Tecumseh though, usually the bottom oil seal, or the crankcase breather takes a crap.

just after you get it back to him, tell him to check his oil level BEFORE he goes to use it everytime, or he will have the same problem again

oh, and make sure he uses SAE30 too, at times 10w30 has come cleaning agents in it that no small engine likes for some reason

[60dgrzbelow0]

Last night... I had this very conversation with the man about not going anywhere NEAR that machine without holding a paper towel in one hand and the engine Dip Stick from this "Rescue Engine" in the other. So your advice is timely and will be covered as many times as it takes me to drive the point home. Thanks for the excellent advice!

I was wondering whether the Kart Racers have a line on anybody who makes alternative connecting rods out of something other than "Graham Crackers" for these engines...

[robertisaar]

i know for some of the smaller briggs motors, they make a billet rod to replace the cast ones... or was it "cast", i forget...

[pmaniac69]

http://www.briggsracing.com/racing_engines/formula/

raptor engines I always thought were aftermarket from briggs, but according to their site, briggs WAS raptor engines and has now discontinued them

but ya, they make racing crap too, I'm not impressed by looking at the engines though

[60dgrzbelow0]

http://www.briggsracing.com/racing_engines/formula/

Raptor engines... I always thought were aftermarket from Briggs, but according to their site, Briggs WAS Raptor engines and has now discontinued them. But ya, they make racing crap too, I'm not impressed by looking at the engines though.

Thanks for the data... at the very least...it makes me think that somebody out there has decided after seeing too many of these rods literally "Going to Pieces..." and has perhaps decided there are enough Intek V-Twins to justify doing even some basic Sand Casting of some Pig Iron rods... and solving the problem once and for all. Just to let you know... the Briggs and Stratton Factory Service Manual finally came in the mail today...so when Bob arrives in the morning with that expectant look on his sad face... I'll be able to install and hook up the "Replacement Killer" Husqvarna motor properly. Also... I poked around on eBay and oddly enough...found a Used Camshaft Kit for $28.00 + $10 S&H and a Brand New Crankshaft Kit WITH the two Con-Rods for only $199.00 plus S&H... But if this new motor works out... I'm hoping it will solve the man's problem for a long time to come. It's just too damned bad about that twisted camshaft f*cking up the main case of that motor... Its so elegant and simple to work on...I think any mechanic with even average skills (like mine) would have an easy time rebuilding that baby. Now if I only knew how to Heliarc aluminum without turning that case into an amorphous paper-weight...

Here is the used Camshaft Kit:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110445823178&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

Here is the Crankshaft Kit:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200393150445&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

[pmaniac69]

shit, you could've saved yourself the money and just given me the model and spec number and I could've gave you any specs you needed
I got all the books at work


...........and isn't it already a paper weight?

[60dgrzbelow0]

Gentlemen...Start your ENGINE!!!

Shit, you could've saved yourself the money and just given me the model and spec number and I could've gave you any specs you needed. I got all the books at work.


...........and isn't it already a paper weight?

The "Money" that has been saved in this instance ... is Bob's ...courtesy of me finding a replacement engine on his behalf for only $360.00. The service manual was under $20.00 and unfortunately was very necessary to obtain and use as a "Training Aid" for a man who's brain is so badly damaged from chemotherapy that he often cannot remember to do even the simplest of tasks without getting himself into trouble.

The information about the "parts" listed in the two URLs was something I needed to do in the unlikely event that the second motor turned out to be mechanically unsound. It wasn't...Its Perfect...and the color of the engine oil in the filter was a cross between Honey and Olive Oil...without the slightest sign of dirt in that motor. The check on these parts was made because I wanted to run the busted upper half of the engine casement down to my machinist buddies at The Godwin Singer Machine Shop and let them assess whether the case would be salvageable or not and get an estimate for the work if it can be repaired... or turns out to be as you've suggested...a Paper Weight. All of the research I did on locating these hard-to-find parts was done for the purpose of covering all of the possible bases involved. At this very moment... buying those parts will not be immediately necessary.

This afternoon, I installed this "Replacement Engine" on Bob's Craftsman Riding Lawn Mower and then carefully inspected it for any problems. I changed the Oil Filter. Motor Oil, Gas and Air Filters and checked the Spark Plug gaps. With the turn of the key, this engine started right up without the slightest difficulty and obtaining it seems to have been the right choice of action to take under the cloud of the bad circumstances Bob found himself in only a few days ago. The short video of him getting "Back in the Saddle" shows how this story finally does have a happy ending. I will continue to help and encourage Bob to check the Oil Level before he starts this engine ...each and every time he wants to cut the grass on his "Blessed Little Plot" of land.

http://s557.photobucket.com/albums/ss19/60dgrzbelow0/INTEKATASTROPHE/