Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

Well, I'm still asking questions about snow blowers, this time about engines:

1)  I'm aware of the fact that Tecumseh and Briggs and Stratton both use plastic timing parts in their OHV engines.  I'm not too crazy about plastic parts in engines.  Should I be concerned about both companies' OHV engines because of this?

2  Are the Tecumseh L-Head engines a good design?  All metal parts?  How about the stories I hear about L-Heads blowing rods (or is this just a matter of keeping your oil full and clean?) 

3)  Should I trust the L-Head more than any OHV engine?  I kind of get this impression from a couple of small engine mechanics I've talked with.

4)  Are larger engines a potential mechanical problem?  I'm thinking of engines larger than 10 or 11 horsepower.  A small engine mechanic told me that such a larger engine could invite more potential problems, but I can't exactly remember what he said without misquoting him.

I'll probably be back again with more questions.  In the meantime, thanks for any help on these latest ones.

I spend a fair amount of time surfing the net researching small engine information.  I had alway been a fan of Japanese engines (Kawi, Suzuki, Fuji, Honda, Yamaha, etc.)  The only time I would buy a Tecumseh or B&S would be due to the product being powered by same and no reasonable alternative available.   I owned a couple ten h.p. Tecumseh L head engines on two snow throwers and a number of B&S small L head engines on lawn mowers.  Despite their crudeness, the worked well and never failed.  I have a 25 year old Craftsman lawn mower/ B&S L head engine that's over 25 years old  and it's still running well.  Never had a problem.   So historically, the L head engines are very reliable, provided oil level is not allowed to drop.   My most recent snow thrower (Simplicity 9528) came with a 9.5 B&S overhead valve engine.   So far I've been very impressed with it.  As far as problems with plastic gears, I guess time will tell.  Being that the domestic manufacturers are fairly recent entries in the small over head valve engine market, their longevity is still yet to be proved. I have not heard of, nor read anything yet that has implied that they have had problems with their plastic gears.   It would be interesting to know if any other participants have heard anything.  One thing I'd like to mention about plastic gears is that I have five old 1970's vintage Yamaha two stroke motorcycles that have plastic drive gears on their oil injection pumps.  The oil injection pump is a critical component.   These engines run at very high rpms (my RD400 up to 10000) and are lubricated by the oil in the transmission which is often just regular engine oil.   If it fails, catastrophic engine failure is inevitable.  Being that the Japanese have been building the worlds best small engines for many years, I doubt that they would use plastic in such a critical application if it was prone to failure.  In addition to that, I participate in a forum dedicated to two stroke motorcycles.  The topic of oil injector plastic gear failure was discussed at length because some participants thought that pre-mix fuel would be safer.  Of all of the participants who have worked on literally thousands of two stroke, oil injected engines, not one failure was reported that was not caused by improper installation.  So, I'd say that if the gears in the domestic engines are made of as good a quality as the old Jap bikes and are kept properly lubricated, they should  last just as well. 

 Regarding problems with larger engines due to them being larger, well, that's a bewildering concept to say the least.  My opinion on that thinking is....B.S.  Pure and simple.  That's one of the strangest  (if not most uninformed/stupid)  things I've ever heard of regarding engines????????   Making large amounts of horse power from small engines has it's perils.  However, any reasonable quality O.P.E. engine running at 3600 rpm (as most do), receiving proper maintenance,  will run as good if it's six or sixteen h.p.      

 

briggs are better. ohv is better simple

You might be interested in this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122602502818007621.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Read the article.  For reasons unknown, they left out the name of the engine supplier.  Tecumseh I presume.  I can see that being a bit of a financial burden for Ariens but have trouble believing it being an actual operations/production issue.  I may be wrong but one would figure that there are a number of small engine manufacturers willing a capable to build engines for Ariens.   I suspect that the real issue is whether or not Ariens is willing to pay for them and increase the price of their machines accordingly.  You can rest assured that Ariens were paying very little for the Tecumseh engines,  which ,in itself may have partially contributed to the engine builders demise.   I know that Tecumseh had recently (Within the last five years or so?) begun to manufacture ohv engines.  My limited exposure to their 13 h.p. model left me to believe that they may have had production issues, at least with that engine.  It costs a lot of money to re-tool to produce a new line of engines.  If you haven't got it right first time around, the implications can be very costly.  Too bad.  If Tecumseh could manufacture a smooth running ohv engine with the reliability of the the old L head, they'd certainly capture and hold their share of the small engine market. 

Those old Tecumseh L heads are pretty good work horses but would not be my preference.  Too crude and too rough.  I've owned two snow  throwers with their 10 h.p. engines.  One vibrated so much that I had to keep a set  of certain sized wrenches in my pocket just to keep the machine together.  Finally I had to Locktite everything.  The irony was that my hands would get numb from vibration.  That combined with extreme cold would make turning a wrench a bit of a challenge at times.  I guess, that as in any  loosely controlled production, particularly on an assembly line that's been producing the same product virtually unchanged for decades, you will get noticeably different performance from the same product.  The second 10 h.p. Tecumseh wasn't nearly as bad as the first but certainly not as smooth as the B&S ohv engine I presently operate. 

With the realization that B&S is expanding while Tecumseh is fading away, it 's very probable that you will be seeing B&S ohv engines on most, if not all domestically produced snow throwers.  In conjunction with that, there might be a slight price increase.  Unless you buy a Toro.  Their hubris and arrogance will probably lead them to believe that by using an ohv engine, they have improved their product so immensely that it's worth an addition $500.00 despite the likelihood they only paid $50.00 more for the engine upgrade. 

Who knows, with any luck, we might see some front running Japanese brand engines on a few models.  Then again, China pumps out small engines at an incredible rate.  I have mixed feelings about Chinese engines.  I've seen some that are pretty good.  Usually they're big name brands (Honda, Mitsubishi etc.) manufactured under strict production guide lines, that appear to be built the best.  Funny thing with Chinese engines is that from outward appearances, they all look pretty good.  Nice clean castings, close tolerance fit, decent paint etc.   However, the internal components are what matters and the quality variance can be considerable.   We'll just have to wait and see what adornes the future offerings when the Tecumseh engines are no longer available.