Alfredo Murray

I love that stretched stance, it looks really mean!

MightyRaze wrote:

Quite the write up.  Nothing an idler can't fix on the belt shifter rub.

Yup! Might stop by TSC tomorrow and snag one.

Brianator wrote:

I love that stretched stance, it looks really mean!

Thanks! Might not look that way once the new tires are on but hopefully it looks even meaner then!

Update coming soon! For now however, an answer to this question would be very helpful!

I'm not an expert or have too much knowledge on catch cans.  I thought catch cans catch more than just oil like fuel and potentially water vapors as well as contaminants from the pcv.  Not to mention on trying to return that oil, the case back pressure could cause oil going the wrong way.  So, for more oil capacity... Best I could think of is a bigger filter if the engine has one.

I would say no, not really. I suppose it's possible but seems more trouble than it's worth for what you'd benefit by doing it. If you're worried about your oil level getting low when out on rides do what I did and install a bicycle water bottle holder under the hood and carry some oil in a Gatorade bottle! Zip ties help hold the bottle in place really well. I can add pics if you'd like to see it.

I personally would add a drain petcock in the bottom, a vent, stuff the bottle with coarse (stainless) steel wool,and call it a day.

It’s just me but I think the best thing to do is new rings. You can get cheap Chinese rings for some Briggs motors on eBay. Mine came from “lil red barn.” Seem to work ok.

To be completely blunt, I’m not really worried about having more oil capacity. This engine doesn’t have a filter anyway so I couldn’t go that route. I just thought, if I have the can returning oil back to the engine and releasing the pressure, then I don’t see what harm would come from adding extra oil in the can if I designed it correctly. As far as a catch can being used for more than separating oil and air, I haven’t heard of it doing much else.

The problem of back pressure is a possibility but also questionable. I have the fuel pump pulse line routed to run off crankcase pressure, and when the motor was on Ole Blue, the pump was disconnected which should have converted the pulse tube to a temporary crank vent. I don’t know how much it helped but as you all saw, it was still blowing massive amounts of oil from the pcv. I also don’t know how big the holes are that lead to the pcv through the block, but obviously, pressure takes the path of least resistance, and if it’s not releasing much pressure through the pulse tube, then I doubt it would do much with a return line from the can. That’s my train of thought at least. Please feel free to agree or refute it. That helps me to think of more possible problems or benefits and ways to overcome or adapt them lol.

Putting new rings in the motor would definitely be best, but really it needs bored and a oversized piston installed. It’s pretty bad. And I don’t want to do any of that until I completely rebuild the engine. So new rings are out of the question. It’s a good running motor… reliable too, it just needs the extra crankcase pressure released.

I saw your Gatorade bottle mod  @Brianator when you did it… I like the idea but really like I said before I’m not worried about having a bigger capacity or running low on oil. I just saw this can and my brain wheels started turning and thought “if I can and it doesn’t harm anything, why not.” If I did it the way I mentioned in the video, it doesn’t seem very complicated or too difficult to me. Run a line from pcv to top of can, run a vent from top of can into dash, and run a return line from the side of the can to the dipstick. Then fill the can with oil and when the level reaches the outlet for the return line, it flows back to the crankcase (if back pressure is low), and once it’s at that level, every time the pcv dumps oil in, it should push oil back out, no? Could maybe be a problem on turns tho…

Also, what would be the benefit of stuffing the can with steel wool if I went with what you’re saying?

Like I said, PLEASE question or refute anything I said. I want to think of as many things as possible that could go wrong with this before I do it lol. I plan on going through with whatever is decided on by the weekend.

The steel wool catches the oil vapor so it doesn't get sucked back into the engine, in your case it would let it settle to the bottom of the can and trickle back into the sump.

It also helps to transfer the heat inside the can to the outside so it can dissipate.

Okay good to know. I’ll search for some today.

Now that I've been out of school for a week, I have finally had time to get to work on this thing! I fabricated an exhaust pipe for it. Took me a few hours to design and fab it. Please don't mind the bugger welds on the corners lol.



Another couple hours for fine tuning and fitment. Finally got it to fit right.




I'm happy with how it turned out. Very low profile but also looks sick. At first glance the mint green may not be the jam but it grows on you lol. I've grown to like it. I feel like it fits the build well. I haven't started it yet as I'm working on the catch can and am going to start on the intake soon, but hopefully it sounds mean! I don't have any exhaust hangers on it and it rests tightly up against the body in the hole I made for it. Hoping that acts as enough hanger to take up the vibrations. If not, well then I guess I'll just throw some hangers on it. I also still have to see how much heat transfer I'm going to get through the floors... If it's too much, I'll have to put some heat shields under there.


As far as the catch can goes, obviously that's been the topic of discussion currently in this thread, so nothing new there. I'm planning on trying out the method I mentioned beginning tomorrow if nothing changes. I guess we'll just have to call this an experiment lol.


I don't have a good idea yet for the intake, so that's still in development. All suggestions for the intake will be considered.

Anyway, there's the update! More to come!

Spent the day working on Alfredo! Decided to go ahead with the catch can and see how it works out. Got it all put together, just needs to be installed now. I also got all the lines cut to size, hose clamps on, and ready to be installed! Once I got all the holes drilled in the can, I found a good way to get the shavings out... lol.



Then I got all the fittings installed.





It's all sitting out to let the JB Weld cure now.

I also took care of the belt rubbing on the shifter. Put an idler in there and it should be good to go!




That's what we got going for it today!

Put the can together and ran it today!




I am getting back pressure through the return line unfortunately. Here's a vidja:



I have to think about it a little more but I don't think it will be a huge problem once I add more oil.

Other than that, I also have a massive exhaust leak due to the extremely bent and warped muffler. I'm gonna have to find or make some really squishy but durable gaskets for it. I also need to put hangers on it. And I'm looking for a starter cover and headlights. I may go with stock headlights with upgraded bulbs and then add a light bar because space is tight and I want to keep the lights behind the lenses. May build a lightweight brush guard for it and mount the light bar to that.

Anyway, I gave the paint another oil bath and rubbed it in and let it soak. Looks a whole lot better in my opinion. Also took a lot of dirt out of the paint.



Anyway, that's where we stand now.

Back when I oppy swapped a rear engine rider, i took like 20 layers of tinfoil and stuck them together with spray adhesive and cut gaskets out of it. That engine mowed plenty of lawn and never seemed to have an issue with them. It wound up as a pretty good thick gasket.

Ooo that’s a good idea. I’ll give that a try!

I like bad jokes... bit of my achilles heel.

*Pretends to have not randomly jacked the thread*

BIG UPDATE: There's absolutely nothing new with Alfredo. He hasn't even been started. Looking to get back to tinkering on Alfredo here in a couple weeks and a thought just came to my mind and I had to share to get you all's opinion...

The reason I haven't really touched Alfredo in the past 5 months is due to the back pressure going into the catch can. I know that was discussed as a possible issue but when it actually happened I wasn't sure how to deal with it and haven't really given it any thought. But, I just thought, how might a check valve help? What do you guys think? Worth a shot? It's only $10.

Maybe? but ultimately probably blown head gasket or rings as you mentioned once.

For $10 sure it's worth a shot but keep in mind the pressure has to go somewhere, that's why crankcases are vented to begin with. The risk is seepage from gaskets, possible blown gaskets and oil will be pushed up past the rings into the cylinder instead of flowing back down. If enough pressure builds up in the crankcase the engine will actually start to lose power too!

MightyRaze wrote:

Maybe? but ultimately probably blown head gasket or rings as you mentioned once.

Yeah it's blow-by. Got some piston slap for sure and bad rings. But like I said this is just temporary. Trying to make the best of it as is for the time being.

Brianator wrote:

For $10 sure it's worth a shot but keep in mind the pressure has to go somewhere, that's why crankcases are vented to begin with. The risk is seepage from gaskets, possible blown gaskets and oil will be pushed up past the rings into the cylinder instead of flowing back down. If enough pressure builds up in the crankcase the engine will actually start to lose power too!

Yes I know. That's why I vented the catch can. Leaves the oil in the can but still lets the pressure out (or it should in theory). But yeah for $10 might as well. And if it doesn't work then I'll have them for the future.

Welp, I tried the check valve. It fixed the back pressure to the catch can, however now it's coming out at the fuel pump. I don't understand why the catch can isn't allowing the pressure to vent since I put the vent in and it's coming right off the pcv, but oh well. I tried. Not too sure where to go from here so I've just been driving it very little and babying it and keeping an eye on the oil.




Anyway, I had the throttle cable come off, which is of no surprise to me, so I redid it a little better this time. I like how it turned out.




Not too trusting of the nut and wire end to hold the wire together but the spring situation is really nice. The springs were my attempt at fixing the really touchy throttle response. Any kind of bump and your foot would bounce off the pedal and it would respond to any change in input, so now it's a little less touchy and a little more controllable.

Also finished up my exhaust for now. While I'm writing this I'm thinking I want to put something in it in the future to give it a deeper growly tone. So I may do that and fix the exhaust leak up front. Won't touch that soon either tho cause I did try the tin foil gasket thing Richie mentioned and it helped but didn't stop it completely. It's not bad enough anymore tho for me to worry about it. I'll get back to that eventually lol.

Anyway I welded up a hanger so it stops moving around. I don't know what the hanger came from. I think it was a belt guide on some mower but I don't remember what it came off of. Anyway it worked really well. I have a rubber bushing separating it from the frame to take some vibration out.




Then I shortened the exhaust tip so that it only sticks out around an 1/8th of an inch and cleaned up the sharp edges.



Also ground down some of the welds and hit it with some high heat clear coat.

When I get this engine figured out I'm planning on rebuilding Ole Blue's trans if I have a top case half from an MST lying around and swapping that in since it has the locker. If I don't have an extra case then I'll just swap the locker into this trans, but I'd prefer to just swap the trans so that I can still drive it while I get the trans ready.

Anyway, that's pretty much where I'm at with it. I stole the ignition for the black widebody so I still need to find another ignition switch. I've just been jumping the solenoid. Anyway, that brings Alfredo up to speed.

I like how you made the exhaust come out of the fender that looks really cool!

As for your catch can... all I can think is that maybe you need to make the inlet and the outlet bigger so the ID of the biggest restriction is at least the same size of the original, really I'd go as far as to make the oulet even a touch bigger than the inlet to prevent any pressure from building up in the can. You're close to having it dialed in man don't give up!

I do suspect some restriction in the can. I may remove the steel wool from the can just to see if it helps at all as far as the pressures go. But I think I'm finally going to give in and rebuild the engine. Get the block honed and get a 10 over performance piston and rings and maybe a billet rod. The carb sucked some dirt in too the other night so I think I might as well put a Mikuni on it. That's about all for now as far as performance goes. The head is already ported and polished. So it won't be anything too aggressive but should definitely have some pep to it. Feel like it's the right thing to do at this point.

I think when I put the engine back together on Ole Blue, I think may have unknowingly put the the ring gaps in line with each other or had them at the bottom of the piston allowing oil to get by easier. But if I'm going to pull the engine apart again, I might as well give it what it needs while I'm in there.

Well, believe it or not things have been kind of slow here lately at the shop so I've finally had time open up to work on Alfredo. I got Ole Blue's trans taken apart and rebuilt and installed! I'll be making a video on what happened to the trans later. It'll be in Ole Blue's thread when it comes out. I cleaned the cases really well, got rid of the old braking system to make room for the new and improved lightweight brake... AKA no brakes, got rid of the spacers in the locker and just welded the keys in to the hub. I found out I somehow bent the axle when it was in Ole Blue. One side isn't straight. Anyway I swapped the input bearings, grease fitting, and vent fitting over to the new case, reassembled everything, painted it and clear coated it and MAN... this trans is looking better than ever. Unfortunately it's not as butter-y as it was. It definitely has some self-clearancing to do in there. You can feel the bull gear rub a little when you roll the mower but hey, even though it may have a tight spot, it doesn't lock up, so it'll be fine. Nothing 20 minutes of 1st and 2nd gear cruising can't fix.






Anyway, while I was working on that, I pulled the motor and washed the tractor and motor thoroughly. Then the other day when the trans was almost done, I started on the mud flap mod. The tractor won't be running for bit so I figured while I felt like it I might as well go ahead and get the body prepped for the mud flaps.




Once I finished that, I took it back outside and gave it another wash, and then I gave it nice good coat of clear coat. I had given it a light one before this too so it has two coats on it now.




Gosh it looks 1000 times better than when I got it.

From there, before I put the trans back in, I decided I better just do it while I was there and reinforced the trans mounts. I knew what would happen if I didn't so I did the right thing. Cut out my triangles, cleaned the edges and surfaces, zapped them on, let them cool and hit em with a coat of old fashioned black. Then I put the trans in and went for the skid plates.





They weren't very difficult. I had to modify the belly pan to fit around my exhaust hanger. But other than that is was just as simple as drilling the holes and finding some hardware. I cleaned the belly pan up too and gave it a fresh coat of paint a few days before. The skid plate itself I just scraped and hit it with some paint with very little prep work because it's just gonna get the crap beaten out of it anyway.




Anywho, that's where I'm at with it now. The motor will be coming apart soon.

Boy oh boy, I need to post more often, this is going to be painfully long lol.

So, a LOT has happened to the ol' gal. I'll try to pick up where I left off but this might be kind of all over the place lol.

After the last post, I changed my mind on the 14.5 for now. I am still going to build it in the somewhat near future but for now, I decided to swap a 3rd motor into it. This is more of junkyard get-me-by motor but man it's got some power. Puts the 14.5 to shame and really shows how tired she is. The motor I decided to use is the 16.5 Kohler I tried to use in the Troy Bilt last year to sell and could not get it to charge correctly and ended up just swapping it with a 17.5 from a John Deere. I figured, since I couldn't use it in a mower I was going to sell, but it ran perfectly fine, I might as well give it a go on Alfredo... and I don't regret that decision at all!

So before I put the new engine on, I decided to at least give the front end a little bit of support. So I zapped a nice piece of angle iron on the front corner of the engine plate.



I have a little more reinforcement I'm planning on doing to the front end in the near future.


Then I fiddled with the seat springs as it was quite literally a pain to ride. The stock springs would be a lot better described as steel pipes. They don't do crap. So I replaced them with two of the springs that come factory on a widebody to trigger the seat sensor and now they fully compress on hard bumps. They really help a lot with the ride.



Then I tackled the dash. I won't go into detail on how I did it because it's kind of self explanatory and this is also the 3rd widebody I've done this on so this is nothing new. Just a very necessary mod that's proven itself very well.



Hit the welds with some clear coat and called it good. Kinda like the natural look at the moment.


Got the engine in... wasn't too difficult. I had to rework the gas pedal and muffler but other than that it was pretty straight forward. I have no stator on it therefore no way of keeping the battery charged but it'll be fine. I don't use it enough for it to be an absolute necessity and the engine isn't permanent anyway.



Little cherry bomb muffler. All I did was cut a factory Kohler exhaust pipe at the mount and turned it roughly 90 degrees, zapped it back on, zapped the cherry bomb on and we're good to go. Lines up perfectly with the factory hole in the hood for the muffler on flathead models. It keeps it nice and quiet at idle, but when you put the pedal down it'll take your hearing out. I would put it in the top 3 loudest machines we've ever had when the pedal is down. It's just as loud as an open head when under a hard load.



All buttoned up! I just put all new intake seals on it and replaced the spark plug boot about a week or so ago as I have was having some pretty bad running issues. I don't know which one it was that caused the issue but it was one of those two because she's good now!




From there I put some hood pins in it. They've preformed pretty well so far!




Then I did the headlights. I could barely fit anything behind the stock lenses with the massive Kohler under there but I found some that clear with not even enough room to put a hair between. I stole 2 of the 4 I ordered for the MM like 2 years ago lol. They were very compact and bright enough and saved me a dime so I went with those. I think they turned out pretty well!





I cannot find these solenoid access panels anywhere anymore. So I grabbed the MM's and a thicker piece of scrap metal and sketched one out, cut it out with an angle grinder, shaped it, sanded it down and slapped some fresh paint on it, and just like that I had my own solenoid access door!





From there I went to the junkyard, found some nice tractor tires mounted on some MTD wheels and also grabbed some Murray/AYP wheels that were the same size. Swapped the tractor tires to the AYP rims, painted them and there they were! First time I've ever actually had a full matching set of offroad tires on a mower!




From there, I for some strange reason had the urge to make a brush guard for it. So I did out of some square stock I have lying around.




No my welds aren't the greatest but I'm pretty darn proud of how it turned out. Very sturdy. When I took that picture I realized that if I was to hit something at speed it would probably just give way at my welds where the joint on the bottom is, so I put some reinforcement on it.




No more squat!




And finally, I did the tried and true mud flap mod to it. This time I just used some self tappers and they seem to be holding pretty well! Really really liking the angle at the front! It's the exact same angle as the tires' tread and that just tickles my brain lol.





And to top it all off, here's some glory shots!









I'm so happy to finally have a running machine again! Only took me what, a year and 9 months to get Alfredo to this point? lol. It's actually been about two and a half years since the MM was last running and that was the last working reliable mower I had so it's nice to finally have something I can hop on and go hit some trails with again! Really loving the Kohler! It's got lots of life in it cause man it has got some PEP. Just absolutely loving that extra power lol. Anyway, there's the big update! I'll try to keep up better with this thread.

I'm gonna get a video up soon on it too and post it on here for y'all!

It looks good man nice job! Those Kohler Commands are great engines, I'm really happy with the one I scored for $25!

Brianator wrote:

Those Kohler Commands are great engines, I'm really happy with the one I scored for $25!

Wow that's impressive! I can't find any running engines for less than 200 around here. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough.