Brent that is some great information. And it also the essence of why lubrication and additives are so "critical" to old and new applications. Do you have further info regarding lubrication applications regarding older equipment as it relates to upgrades vs detriments as "contrast" to modern lubrication properties / data base. I've got an older Mitsubishi track loader (I think it is a BS3F) I need to service and I'm stumped on info regarding proper and or upgrading lubrication, specifically drive line.
Have you considered the thermostat might be whacko or maybe the block is "Air Locked" and the thermostat may not be getting heat convected to it because it doesn't have water present "air locked" or around it to convect and or sense the heat the engine is producing. ie the thermostat id issolated or insulated by air and can nor sense the heat. So it never opens.
Have you considered the thermostat might be whacko or maybe the block is "Air Locked" and the thermostat may not be getting heat convected to
it because it doesn't have water present "air locked" or around it to convect and or sense the heat the engine is producing. ie the thermostat is isolated or insulated by air and can nor sense the heat. So it never opens.
And as you discovered, its impossible. Sad to say it, but the smallest Briggs engines of today are truly awful. I hate to see a great American company go that way. I just hope the MBA-induced product rot doesn't spread to the rest of their engine line, or my next lawnmower may be a stinking H*nda.
I thought it was Kawasaki, but about the same difference. The only things left that are any good are the big side-valves. I/C and Commercial series. Or any of the few million pre-1980s ones still out there running (and running, and running, and running....)
The part we were discussing is the block. There isn't much difference in the design.
The carb has changed so has just about anything you can see on the outside.
What would I find different inside? It's not like they had any thing more than the bare essentials inside there 50 years ago. What I'm I going to find that they have eliminated or changed significantly inside. In general the internal parts are cast and machined to more consistent level of quality and accuracy than they were 50 years ago. And yes, the engines are probably built lighter and cheaper than they were 50 years ago. If a manufacturer builds an engine for $100 that will last 10 years and builds another of the same size for $200 that will last 50 years today's consumer will buy the $100 engine every time so manufacturers respond to consumer demand and are not going to build a product no one will buy. If you had to buy a push lawnmower in 1958 dollars adjusted for inflation your lawnmower would cost close to $1000 dollars today. Or put another way, if you go to Wal-mart and look at what a cheap push-mower cost today and adjust that cost to 1958 dollars that mower would have sold for less than $10 in 1958.
And besides your ignorance of the impact of changing economics you also seem to be completely oblivious to the change in government regulations that contribute to some of the changes that you are seeing in the design (particularly that carb of which you seem to be so fond).
But all of that has very little to do with the present discussion (other than to establish your incapacity to reason well). If you buy a Briggs motor and you do not use the recommended oil you do risk damaging the engine and ending its life prematurely. And the reason for that is that some of the additives used in modern automotive oils simply do not hold up when they are subjected to temperatures above a certain point. And some small air-cooled engines can and do get the oil that hot, which is much hotter than you ever would get the oil in a normal properly functioning automobile. If you do use an oil that can take the heat, and in every other way maintain the engine properly you can reasonably expect the engine to outlast just about every other part on a modern push-mower. That is, the wheels are all going to fall off, the handle break, and all the other cheap plastic and stamped metal components disintegrate long before you have any problems with the engine.
I work in the metal casting industry and I can assure you the foundry that cast your block has got stacks and stacks of statistics that say you are wrong. Statistically they are better made. Statistically, the block you get today, the metal is going to be poured at closer to the ideal temperature and closer to the ideal alloy composition than it was
50 years ago. Statistically the parts are going to be machined so that they can be held to closer tolerance than the were 50 years ago. When you buy a new engine they burn less oil to begin with then they did 50 years ago. There are a lot of things on your lawn mower that are cheap and not designed to last, but that doesn't have any thing to do with the problem you had. Most push mowers sold today have no provision for adjusting the carburetor. Just how long do you think a '50's lawn mower would last with that feature?
I already told you if you hadn't changed the oil at all the engine would have lasted 5 years. If you never even ever checked the oil it probably would have lasted 3 or 4 years. Everything you said points to lubrication failure. Next time why don't you try extra virgin olive oil at least it will smell good when you burn her up.
Assuming we are talking about US-made castings, this is true. HOWEVER, I will say that the tighter tolerances possible today are not always a good thing. When tolerances were sloppier, there was a tendency for engineers to over-reinforce parts of castings that were going to be machined, and today there isn't that need. You get lighter castings, and statistically speaking the worst ones aren't any worse than they ever were, but the best ones aren't as good.
Secondly, having tighter tolerances makes it possible to design stuff that only works with those tighter tolerances. Whereas fifty years ago engines would be designed to work with comparatively wide ring tolerances, today they are often designed to work with more tight tolerances. The result is better efficiency and less friction but when the cylinders start wearing, problems appear faster.
A more serious issue, though, is that a lot of stuff that used to be cast in US foundries with good quality control are now being made offshore in some places where quality control is agricultural in nature. They cast parts as fast as they can with whatever metal they have, and just like apples or peas, they sort them into grades A, B, and C depending on how they came out.
I won't mention any names here, but a lot of US manufacturers are going to offshore manufacture because the customers want products that are cheap, not necessarily products that are good. I recently saw a 2KVA (and that is optimistic) generator built by a company called Standard, which had the worst material used in the block I have ever seen. It makes the Trabant engine look like high quality in comparison. This is steel I wouldn't even want my steam iron made out of. Needless to say, the reliability of the generator is questionable.
We are talking about Briggs and stratton their castings are made in US.
Over-reinforce? We are talking about an increased machining accuracy of only a few thousands. the amount of machining stock added to a casting doesn't have much affect on the end result as it gets machined off.
And why would that be true? What would be the point of machining more accurately if the worst gets worse and the best aren't as good? Sounds like something right out of Alice in Wonderland.
That's doesn't make sense why would less friction cause the cylinders wear rapidly. There are a number of things that can cause modern push mower engines to deteriorate rapidly. For instance, in an effort to comply with cleaner air standards small engines are designed to run leaner with no provision for mixture adjustment. That alone pretty much guarantees they are going to go down hill pretty fast once they start to loose a little compression. Also in the old days when the engine had points if you hit something with the mower and the flywheel key sheared a little the engine stopped running and you had to fix it. With the modern ignitions the engine doesn't loose spark and can just continue to run with the ignition out of time. Continuing to operate a mower with incorrect timing can seriously shorten the engines life span. There are other external components that are not as durable. But none of that has anything to do with the quality of what's inside and in particular nothing to do with the quality of the metal.
I believe Briggs and Stratton casts all their engines here in the US so we don't need to muddy the waters with that little fairy tail. There ae plenty of good castings made outside the US.
Steel engine block? - well that is a new one on me.
We're discussing the block, rings, piston, crank, conrod, bearings.
The block material today is inferior (softer). The assembly quality today is horrible.
Not in a small Briggs&Stratton, they aren't.
*MY* capacity to reason well? Pot, kettle, black! You're the one who thinks you can tell how dirty an oil filter is by how heavy it feels. You're also the one who failed to catch the fact that, while you state that it is the OIL that kills modern small engines not that they're made like crap, *I* pointed out that I have a 1958 Briggs running happily on Mobil 1 10w30, but hls couldn't get a modern one to last more than a few hours on any oil.
And you question *my* capacity to reason well? Sheesh.
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