High Pitch Rattle on a K321
 

So over the last few months I've been building a loader on my 149. Before I started pulling stuff off there was a fairly high pitched rattle. Not a real squeal or rattle but kind of a combination. The drive line was in poor shape and the pto was sorta seized sorta not and I was pretty sure that's where the noise was from. It sounded exterior, but I couldn't pin point where exactly it was coming from. I fixed the driveline and removed the pto completely. When I fired it up today, to my surprise and dismay, the noise was still there. It sounds a bit like a dry bearing. I loosen the SG belt and that didn't change anything.

The tractor is new to me since fall with just an hour or so of run time and the noise was there when I bought it. Didn't have my hearing aids in when I looked at it and I don't hear high pitches. I don't hear women or children well and I'm ok with that.

I have no experience with Kohler's or actually any large single engines other than old motorcycles.

Is there a likely culprit, something common with this engine?

Your noise wouldn’t be the shroud screen bent or loose enough to make the sound you are hearing could it?

Try standing in front of the engine and listening for it and then stand behind the engine and listen for it. Like the Doppler Effect, you should hear it louder on one end or the other. Try disengaging your manual pto lever once it is running. Chances are it is in your front pto and it could just be the wear button.

EDIT: OOppsss......ignore my comment. I just re-read your post and realized that you have your pto removed from your engine so it cannot be that.

Cub Cadet 123

I checked and that screen does rattle when I tap it with my finger. The bolts are snug but the screen is dimpled in under the bolts. Hopefully that's it. I'll find out tomorrow.

Have you had this engine apart?

1st thing that comes to mind...
Cam end play not properly shimmed as in to loose?
Take a long screwdriver and hold it tight to your ear and place the end on the engine. May help to ear plug the other ear while doing this.

Try it on the cam side, front and back, may help to locate where the noise is coming from.

BTW, I'm in the same hearing boat as you.

Perhaps the noise resides in your S/G? What is the condition of the brushes and bearing(s)?

Or maybe the head gasket is blown?

Or one of the cooling shroud panels is loose? There's a lot of panels that could loosen up and rattle.

Just throwing out some suggestions. These Kohlers do shake pretty good, the rattle could be coming from somewhere on the tractor frame rattling due to the engine vibration.

Thanks for the ideas. I really should have taken care of this problem before, but I casually and lazily just assumed what it was. Now I have to work around a loader.

I have not had the engine apart, but that doesn't mean PO's haven't. I did use a hose in my ear previous to fixing the driveline and removing all the PTO pulley and related linkages. Couldn't pin point anything that way.

I'll start with the easy and remove the drive shaft, the screen and all the top/side shrouding. Hopefully I won't need the screwdriver stethoscope to determine inner failings. The engine is a smoker, so there is work to be done there, but I thought the ability to fog for mosquitos might be nice when tilling on those warm bug filled evenings.

I have a gasket set that has a cheap head gasket and I bought a good gasket separately, so I'm going to pop the head just for inspection purposes anyway.

So I took tin off the engine one piece at a time, then the drive shaft, then the flywheel screen with no luck. The noise goes away at idle. Gets quite loud just above idle then changes pitch as throttle is increased. I'm pretty sure it's coming from the front (of the tractor) but I can't pinpoint it with the redneck stethoscope.

I have .010" crankshaft end play.

The motor doesn't shake badly, I don't think.

Could it be counter balance weights or possibly the ACR?

Or maybe the governor internals?

Anyway, looks like I'm going to be pulling the motor. :Huh:

May be the crankshaft bearing.

^^^ That is a possibility and not as bad a some other things, I guess

I mounted a hydraulic pump with a love joy coupling to the front. of the crank. While I was cycling the loader, don’t think there was any change in the noise with the added load.

Ok, pulled the motor and took the pan off and pleasantly surprised at how clean everything is. I'm pretty sure the noise is the counterbalance gear. It's very loose on it's stub shaft and flops around excessively.

Now I've heard of leaving the gear out altogether. What would the experienced advise?

Looks like I'll need to bore over and a valve job.

Use green loctite:ROTF2: ......No.....Seriously, remove the counterbalance gears.

There should actually be 2 gears, an upper one and a lower one. Remove them both, if you don't then there's a good chance that one (or both) will decide that they no longer wish to live inside the engine, and carve themselves an escape route :biggrin2:.

The lower gear is easy to remove, but to get the upper one you either have to pull the crankshaft or use a rod and hammer to "destruct" the gear. I ended up "destructing" the top gear on mine as I did not wish to pull the crank.

Yes, two gears. I'm sure the top one is just as bad as the bottom. Flopping around like two seagulls fighting over a mackerel. The block is getting stripped out for boring and valves.

Billy-O, real Loctite is very expensive! There must be a cheap e-bay alternative :biggrin2:

Not often the recommended repair saves both time and money! :beer2:

Case is stripped out except for the cam shaft and valves. I had to scab together a puller for the basket pulley. Hopefully never need it again. I may put on a plain pulley and keep the original with the PTO incase someone wants to add one to their motor.

The crank measures .001" under 1.500" and half a thou out of round. It and the con rod look good. Cam lobes look good.

Lots of spalling on the balance gear stub shafts and I'm pretty confident that's where the noise came from. Getting ready to crater and just singing about it. Crank bearings look and feel good. Probably change them just because.

Jug is still standard bore. Though no scoring, it needs to go oversize.

Now I have to clean this mess up.

Good thing you caught that! :ThumbsUp:

^^^ Yes, I don't need to be the guy that shares pics of his grenad'ed Kohler.

This engine was a smoker and I figured it would be valves and piston rings. Checking them, I'm pretty sure the valves and guides have been replaced and the seats machined.

But the rings! The piston has a lot of wash on the top lip in one spot, and a little scuffing on the shirt. Bore has normal wear. The ring gap, in the top, is .120"
Yup, one hundred twenty thousands. And of course much more in the wear area of the stroke.

The con rod had crude match marks on it, so the piston has been out. I'm wondering if someone just stuck a set of real cheap rings in it without deglazing?

IMO piston rings worn that much is actually a sign of overheating. Get some crud up against some of the cooling fins and that section won't cool. Thus the rings begin to heat excessively, wearing out parts of them rapidly while other spots don't wear.

Either way definitely good that you've torn it apart, probably wouldn't last too long with rings that worn.

:ThumbsUp:

The gift that keeps on giving! Cleaning up the oil pan and what do I find? Yup, somebody inflicted a blow to the drain plug, denting the pan and cracked on the inside from the bulging. Also a hairline crack running right through the threads. Well crap!! :bash2:

I don't have a tig welder at home and the one in my old shop has been stored away since I retired. Wire feed is not the best for this, and oil saturated aluminum is a total pain at best. But I cleaned as much as I could, sweated out as much oil as would come out. The normal course for this is to cut into it then run a hot weld over it, which will be full of holes. Then with a very coarse burr, cut it out and repeat till its good. Couldn't find a suitable burr. The inside cracking was full of oil. I ended up welding over the outside. It's sure not pretty, but I got it and even sealed the plug face.

There is some damage to the engine mount bolts holes from bolts being loose and rattling around and I don't think there's enough meat to heil-coil them. I'm going to make studs from grade eight threaded rod, run them in full length with gap filler Loctite. And leave enough length through the cradle for a hardened washer and a ny-lock nut.

Probably lifted it with a floor jack on that area.
Ditch that pan and find a cast iron piece.

You're probably right, never thought of that.

Old Cubs and Cub parts are about non existent in western Canada and about one per thousand square miles in my area and I have that one. But I'll be keeping my eyes open for a good cast iron pan. I do have a bunch of PTO and rear lift parts to trade.

theres a few in ny on fakebook that have tons of stuff.. i cannot say if they will send it that far.

also CT i think theres a guy that has tons of cub stuff..

i would replace. you know it will be in the back of your head all the time you riding it.

heres a few of them. no clue on how they are with shipping. i havent bought anything from them.. they r all fakebook. so i guess board doesnt allow them. but just use numbers off the end .
https://******************/marketpla...52507821672110

https://******************/marketpla...87118604839268

https://******************/marketpla...76454466024896

https://******************/marketpla...22175882453446

Thanks ICOM. Cast pans with the dipper extension seem rare.

no idea on how rare the deep dish pan is but here is another guy and he will ship.
i have 4 motors 10 to 14 and there all deep dish. so again no idea ..
something tells me this guy might have one

face book. com/marketplace/item/4033520333325402

If you don't mind a road trip from BC to Yelm, WA, there's a guy down there who parts out the older cubs. I've done business with him many times. His name is Joel Cook, and he advertises on Craigslist all the time. Craigslist-Seattle-Farm and Garden-By Owner-Cub Cadet. If he ain't got it, it can't be found around here.

Thanks for the info Westerncannonball. I have friends that have Washington postal boxes.

I got everything run through the parts washer this morning and on closer inspection, I believe Darkminion had it right with the crank bearings. One is very raw! Good news is my old work place had two new old stock bearings for free.

I milled .008" off the head before it had nice crisp edges right to the combustion chamber, more than I thought it would need. I ground the valves and since they had been changed in recent history they cleaned up pretty quick. The black line, in the one pic, is the wear area after taking a couple thou off.

I also noticed that the top of the tappet adjustment was wore in from the end of valve stem. So I ground that ridge off too. That would give you a false feeler gauge reading when setting the valve clearance. Turned out to be about .003".

I dropped the block off and ordered a piston today.

Still waiting on a piston to arrive, but it's snowing now, so the sled dogs should get through a bit faster.

Until I can find a reasonably priced cast iron oil pan, I'm going to use this one. I cut studs from grade eight threaded rod. The threads in the pan are wallowed a bit in the top third, so I installed the studs with two part, metalized epoxy. The studs are threaded right to the bottom to ensure 100% thread use. The front stud length is fairly critical so they don't hit the axle in full articulation, but pretty easy to check without the motor attached to the pan.

When re-installing, getting the motor and driveshaft aligned and coupled up usually requires a bit of sliding and maneuvering of the motor.
I hope the permanent studs do not complicate that for you.

^^^ Shouldn't be a problem? Same amount of wiggle room as with bolts.

Do you normally loosen the pan bolts whenever removing and reinstalling the driveline?

Yes you do, but you can always install the driveshaft from the rear.
You can strip out a nut easier than a bolt that is why they use bolts in the pan, hopefully you can find a pan...

Alrighty, thanks. I took my drive line in and out several times without loosening the bolts. :o

Lots of aluminum pans on ebay, but it would it would suck to end up buying one that had the same problem. Many seller's idea of "good condition" is a bit subjective.

Hang in there, cast pans show up, and you can always request a seller more info and pix's of bolt area in Aluminum pans, most are willing to work with you.
And ebay has your back if item "is not as described" BTDT.
Yes it is a disappointment and time lost if a pan is bad.

The piston showed up yesterday and I picked up the bored block this morning. Pretty smooth sailing until I went to install the crank seals. Well the flywheel side seal is just a piece of $h!t. For the PTO side there was two seals. BOTH no good! Basically size for size on the bore.

It's a generic seal kit, but the only complaint in the reviews was about the head gasket, of which I ordered a Stens separately.

Anyway, now I going to be looking for crank seals. :bash2:

Picked up the replacement seals yesterday and got to work. Got it all together and back in and spent some time today doing some little things while I was at it. New points, condenser, plug and wire It fired right up and ran good, which was nice. I let it run at high idle and cycled the loader to put some load on it. Whether the rattle come form the crank bearings or the balance gears, I'll never know, but it's gone! Re-torqued after it cooled, then put the tin on.

I bought a digital tach and installed it but it doesn't work, possibly a dead battery, which is replaceable. Not sure what was in this dash hole before , but now it has a tach. I have to pull the fuel tank off again to get at the tach mounting stud nuts but till then, I'll have to use a hand held tach to set the max rpm.

Also discovered after it was installed that the threads are stripped in the SG pivot on one end. Have to pull that and go oversize or helicoil it.

But overall I'm happy that it's done and seems to run fine.

Picked up some plate for the bucket today too.

Sounds good.

You gonna dump that exhaust right out onto that new paint and all them hoses??

^^^^ Raise the loader about six inches and it misses everything, but no it's not staying like that. I've been spraying PB Blaster on the elbow threads for six months now and periodically trying to turn it and did get it to move a few degrees one time. My fear is breaking the block. I may cut it off and split it in two. I'd like the exhaust pipe to run straight down and then have the muffler under the front at a right angle to the frame.

Good to see your progress.:beerchug::beerchug:

I put the muffler on mine under the right foot rest and ran the exhaust underneath to the rear and out the right side under the weight box

That sounds like a good solution, every car manufacturer in the world may be onto something there. Can you post a couple pics?