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replacement for Kohler valve springs


Tarheel

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I have a Kohler M-18 Magnum in my 7117 and last evening as I was tilling my garden it suddenly sounded as if it ran out of gas for a second then chugged weakly and died before I could get the PTO shut off. It would not restart. After towing it back to the shop and letting it sit over night I learned it had a valve problem. I pulled the valve covers and found that the problem was a broken intake valve spring. These springs seem a little light to me and I wondered if anyone knew of a slightly heavier replacement ? (wire diameter is thin) Thanks in advance
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quote:
These springs seem a little light to me and I wondered if anyone knew of a slightly heavier replacement ? (wire diameter is thin)
In these engines, I rarely hear about failed valve springs, of all things. I would certainly think that the stock springs, engineered for that setup, cam tappet, valve, etc., should be more than sufficient. If there were blogs about weak and failing springs as a known issue with these engines I might look elsewhere. But I do not believe that is the case.
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Terry, I all my years of rebuilding small engines (circa 1970-now) I never witnessed (even in blown- rod thrown engines) a broken valve spring. IMHO, just replace it with new/used used one. To me, this spring breakage was simply a fluke. Tom (PK)
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I did replace it with a factory spring. I was pretty proud of myself in that I replaced the spring without pulling the head. Pulling the head would have meant pulling the engine and I get "seasick?" when I lay flat on my back. ( so it wasn't just being lazy ) The hardest part was figuring out how to hold the spring compressed while I got the keepers back on the valve stem. Has anyone else ever done this ?
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Terry, To me, it would be near impossible to remove the spring without first removing the valve. With the tight space in most L-head/flat head engines' valve boxes I would think there would only be 3/4" of space or so with the valve to tappet clearance before the valve face touches the head; and not enough to get the spring out. Hmmmm Tom (PK)
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Removing the old spring was easy because it was broken in the middle. Putting the new spring in wasn't bad either because springs bend. Bent it and rolled it into place. Then I used air pressure to hold the valve closed while I compressed the spring and got the keepers in place. Released the spring, put the valve cover on and removed the air line, put the spark plug back in and fired it up.
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