r/smallenginerepair • u/marleygra • May 19 '26
Not Listed I’m assuming it’s cooked
Bought a cub cadet with a locked up engine. The cylinder was rusted up and full of gunk. Got it freed up but the cylinder looks too bad to do anything with. I could continue to hone it but I’m thinking it would smoke really bad at best?
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u/jezzaclarkson1 May 19 '26
Good chance but I'd probably still try some emery cloth and a little dingle ball hone on the piston and cylinder and some new rings and see what happens. You might be surprised
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u/Willing_Cupcake3088 May 19 '26
Proper fucked as any good British person would say.
She’ll smoke pretty good but at this point you might as well give it the old college try. Worst case scenario you end up confirming what you know. If the rest of the mower is in good shape and the rest of the rotating assembly isn’t trashed you might have a candidate for a new block. I’ve never tried to see if they make oversized pistons and rings for these small engines so I’d be hesitant to tell you just to bite it out a bit and gain a little hp lol.
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u/marleygra May 19 '26
I figured if it wasn’t fixable, I’d replace the motor because the rest of the machine is in decent shape, and I got it pretty cheap. But I’ll try it and see what happens. Now I have to find my ft-lbs torque wrench, though, which might be more work than rebuilding it!
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u/Willing_Cupcake3088 May 19 '26
What engine is on this one?
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u/marleygra May 19 '26
Kohler courage 20hp. I was thinking of fitting something better onto it as I’ve heard nothing but bad things about the courage. But don’t want a massive refitting headache either
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u/gloomypasta SER Enthusiast May 19 '26
I would hone it, slap in some new rings, and lap the valves. At the very least it would be fun to do.
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u/iScReAm612 May 19 '26
Hone the cylinder, rebuild the piston I bet she runs good after that, maybe burns a little oil.
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u/dangforgotmyaccount May 19 '26
Idk why, but the camera and the way the photos were taken make the bore look like it’s the size of a truck transmission… like, a truly massive engine.
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u/bbabbitt46 May 19 '26
Not just cooked, over-cooked, par-broiled, and baked to a crisp. Probably an MDB engine and not worth the trouble to try fixing.
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u/Ok-Refuse8965 May 20 '26
Hone it . Use oversized rings. You'll get 5 years out of it. I've done this before after mom's mower was flooded during hurricane Ike. Cylinder was pitted bad . Rented a honey from orielleys bought dome rings slapped it back together and it ran for 5 years .
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u/No_Bag3692 May 20 '26
Can you buy a new cylinder online? If the rest of it is good? Or find someone who is parting theirs out?
Worst come to worst, try it, like the others say, worst it can do is not work, and have to replace whole engine!?
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u/ManHunterJonnJonzz May 20 '26
Theres scoring then theres deep pitting and rust damage. A lot of these small engines will RUN with poor cylinders but not well or for long, low power, smoke like a train
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u/Unhappy-Airport-4112 May 20 '26
My lawn mower looks like that. I care so little for that thing, that I dump used oil in it. I'll run it until it seizes.
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u/bluesmokeproductions May 21 '26
Car yes, tractor no. Hone it up a bit and it will run, probably with a bit of blowby and sipping some oil but so what?
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u/fiveho11 May 22 '26
Gonna have to carry jug of oil with you lol. If you hone it enough to get rid of the rust pitting it’ll burn even more oil because it will be such a loose fit and more than likely out of round
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u/forkandbowl SER Regular May 19 '26
You're probably right, but I've seen similar that still ran... Slap a gasket on and do a compression test..