# 10hp Tescumsh With oil in exhaust and intake



## Mattpar (Jan 18, 2014)

1987? Ariens ST1032 w/ 10hp Tecumsh motor. It was my dads but he just bought a new blower, so I got this one.

Problem is that it use to run good, then one day he went to use it, it wouldnt run for more that 2 seconds and it would "bang" out of the exhaust. Like explosions coming out of the motor. But the muffler wasnt on tight so i dont know if that was making it sound worse that it actually is. But it was loud and sounded rough. 

So I get this machine, I get it home. Pull the spark plug, wet with oil. Remove the muffler. All the little plates inside the muffler have broken loose and are rattling inside the muffler. Look into the exhaust port. Wet with oil. Like there is a trail of oil. I removed the Carb and intake tube. Same story, wet with oil. So I remove the breather cover/valve spring access cover, oil is dripping off of the wire mesh behind the plate. That plate also has crankcase breather tube on it.

I pulled the cylinder head. Seems all good. No breaks in the gasket, the cylinder walls look pretty decent. still have the honing marks in them. Valves and piston move freely when engine turned over. I havent checked valve lash(dont have a feeler gauge). But I was thinking of polishing the valve and seats and cleaning everything up and reassembling everything and go from there.

After some research, could be a clogged crank case breather, bad rings, poor sealing intake/exhaust valve,....

Any Suggestions!?!?!









Piston









Exhaust Port


















New and Old


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## Shryp (Jan 1, 2011)

That is a lot of oil. Did he ever store it tipped up on the front end?


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## td5771 (Feb 21, 2011)

I am no expert but judging by the oil mainly on the lower halves of the intake and exhaust ports I would be leaning towards valve seals/guides. As for the oil on the plug some from the intake port would get sucked into the cylinder on the intake stroke.

Put the head on even with the old gasket (maybe some sealer depending on gasket condition) and do a compression test. If it's decent --80 and up-- probably just the guides. If the compression stinks could be rings.

Not a guarantee just some thoughts.


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## motorhead64 (Dec 15, 2013)

You have the breather out. What does it look like? Definitely clean up the head and top of valves/piston. Then get yourself a feeler gauge and check your valve clearances. When they tighten up, it will run like crap. If you can twist the valves with your fingers when at TDC on the compression stroke, your valves need adjustment for sure. MH


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## Kestral (Dec 22, 2013)

Heck if you are going to go that far why not just rebuild the entire motor. Just saying that is what I would do.


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## db9938 (Nov 17, 2013)

Here are some things I would consider before I tore into it much further. 

Does the PCV breather rattle?

Was it overfilled?


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## Mattpar (Jan 18, 2014)

motorhead64 said:


> You have the breather out. What does it look like?











The breather tube was clear. Then I ran some carb cleaner through that baffle on the left. That wasnt clogged. So there was no restriction there.




motorhead64 said:


> Definitely clean up the head and top of valves/piston. Then get yourself a feeler gauge and check your valve clearances. When they tighten up, it will run like crap. If you can twist the valves with your fingers when at TDC on the compression stroke, your valves need adjustment for sure. MH


Just did that and the intake would spin all up until the very tippy of top dead center. Exhaust valve was seated tight when not on exhaust stroke. So my guess is that its sucking oil through the valve guides and up into the intake.

So I'm gonna take the both valves out and clean them up, then grind the stem to get the clearance within tolerance. Any suggestion on what they should be? 

Clean everything up and hopefully have running ariens soon!!!


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## GustoGuy (Nov 19, 2012)

Mattpar said:


> 1987? Ariens ST1032 w/ 10hp Tecumsh motor. It was my dads but he just bought a new blower, so I got this one.
> 
> Problem is that it use to run good, then one day he went to use it, it wouldnt run for more that 2 seconds and it would "bang" out of the exhaust. Like explosions coming out of the motor. But the muffler wasnt on tight so i dont know if that was making it sound worse that it actually is. But it was loud and sounded rough.
> 
> ...


If it keeps running poorly you may need to take the engine in and have new valve guides put in along with new valves and have them lapped to fit the valve seats or you can do it yourself with a small tool that suction grabs the top of the valve so you can spin it against the valves seats with some lapping compund between the valve and the valve seat. Then adjust the valve clearene as per specification 0.004 inch on the engine. 
Valve adjustment is made with the engine cold, with a flat feeler gauge (0.004 inch) and on the 10-16hp engines, with the lifter held in place with a slender 1/2" open-end wrench and turning the adjuster screw in the lifter with a 7/16" open-end wrench. When checking valve clearance, always have the piston at the TDC position on the compression stroke. And make sure the ends of the lifters and valve stems are ground square for proper adjustment. The valve clearence is .004 inch and max tolerance is .008inch. ​


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## motorhead64 (Dec 15, 2013)

http://www.asos1.com/tecumseh4hp/Tecumseh.pdf

Here is a link that might help with info on valves in Tecumseh L-head. MH

PS My info indicates .008 Intake clearance, .012 Exhaust valve clearance for 10 hp.


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## HCBPH (Mar 8, 2011)

*10 hp*

If it was mine, I'd clean up the piston and the valves, the exhaust port and breather using brake cleaner and brass brush. After that, I'd check for cylinder wear then change the oil and put it back together. I'd then do a compression check and see how that works and include new sparkplug and points. I'd run it some and see how it works, might not require a rebuild.
The 10HP on the Searsasaurus looked pretty much like that when I first tore it down. Thing was, compression etc seemed good so I decided to clean it up well and see how it ran. Well it's run very well and I have done a partial teardown last year and it hasn't reoccurred. I'm suspecting it was tipped or something similar when it wasn't working and it got into the cylinder somehow. 
Also take a look for oil leaks and see if that leads you anywhere.
If it turns out it needs a rebuild, you're not out anything but a few bucks and a little time.


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## ranvette (Jan 5, 2014)

First thing you need to do is a leak down test and check valve clearance.I think you may have a broken ring piston ring groove type problem


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## BeerGhost (Dec 17, 2013)

Did someone pour oil down the plug hole for storage?


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## Mattpar (Jan 18, 2014)

*progress*

Progress.









Cleaned up the pistion

Lapped the valves and adjusted, now that i got the valves seating better I can do a compression test on it. Leak down i dont have tools for that,...








I lubed the valve stems with oil then reinstalling, I did notice when removing the intake valve is slide out nicely(but not too loose) where as the exhaust valve got tight in some spots and had to be pulled a little harder to get out. I'm not talking I have to the vice grips and rip it out and then hammer it back it, but it pinched a little.

I took the carb apart and cleaned that. It was pretty clean. Girlfriend didnt like coming home and seeing a carb and brake clean in the bathroom, but oh well. No utility sink or heated garage = working in doors. I told her I was gonna wheel it through the french doors and into the diningrooom/kitchen area to work on it. She wouldnt let me do that.


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## motorhead64 (Dec 15, 2013)

Tight fit on valve stems is good. You don't want blow by getting back up in your combustion chamber. You should notice a difference in compression when you button her up. Make sure you tighten your head gasket in the proper sequence to specified torque to avoid warping of your head and possible leakage. Looks nice! MH


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## Mattpar (Jan 18, 2014)

well I put it all back together, got it running for a few seconds and that was it. I could get it to cough, but never was able to get it back running. Flooded it multi times, broke the pull cord(luckily the electric starter still works) but never got it to come back to life. I cleaned the carb orginal, but didnt put new bits into it. I'm polly gonna do that next. Rebuild the carb and go from there. Its wanting to start, Just gotta figure out this issue now. I have good spark, good compression(judgin by when it did have a pull cord it was hard to turn over)


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