Re: Kohler 321 OIL 30-weight??
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Posted by john d. on August 20, 1998 at 14:22:15:
In Reply to: Kohler 321 OIL 30-weight?? posted by Mike on August 20, 1998 at 12:26:40:
: Just had the crank replaced in a Kohler 321. After
: running 1.5 hours the rod bearing siezed. The shop that did
: the work said it siezed because I was using 10W30 and not
: plain 30 weight. : Are they handing me a line?? Well....that depends... on a few things. Kohler is very adamant that SAE 30 is THE oil of choice, for just about ANY type of situation. A lot of service people are even more inclined to believe that anything that goes wrong with an engine using oil other than SAE 30 is caused by the oil! The fundamentals are, any oil gets thinner as it gets hotter. If you put SAE 10W in that engine, it would lubricate well until it got hot, then it would be too thin to be effective. SAE 30 thins out some and does a great job at operating temperature, but doesn't do a good job of getting where it's supposed to go in a cold engine when the air temperature is sub-zero. 10W-30 is a compromise; it flows well at low temperature, yet doesn't become any thinner than SAE 30 at high temperature. Should be the best of both worlds! Some service people will tell you that the "viscosity breaks down" at high temperature, and multi-grade oils won't work. My experience is otherwise, especially if the oil is changed frequently. I rebuilt my father's 16hp Kohler, and he's run it four seasons on SAE 10W-40 with NO problems and no significant oil consumption. It's on a hydrostatic Wheelhorse, and he works it hard when mowing. My JD 110 has a Kohler 8hp, and the last time I rebuilt it, everything looked decent but measured pretty loose. I was in a hurry, ground the valves and put in some new rings. Filled it with SAE 20-50 racing oil, and went to mowing! Got five (5) good seasons out of it until it started using oil. I even run 10W-40 in the crankcase of our Super M in the winter time for pushing snow. Makes it a lot easier to start, and haven't had any trouble in about 10 years. Unless you were running that engine under extreme load at very high temperature, the oil is not the reason that rod bearing froze. I'd sooner think it was either the wrong size rod, improperly torqued, assembled with some dirt in it, not oiled when assembled and then spun at high speed with the starter before oil was added, or the crank journal was scored from the previous rod. Another possibility could be that the engine was bored oversize and improperly cleaned, or that it was even bored "out of line" and that put extra strain on the rod. This engine has a "splash" lubrication system. Take a look at the rod, and see if the "oil slinger" extension is still on the end of the rod cap. If someone was extremely careless, that could be broken off during assembly, and then the engine will be getting little or no oil. Something else to check, is whether the rod cap was on backwards, though that's unlikely on some models. An hour and a half isn't much use to get out of a re-build. Did the shop that did the work start it and run it when finished? What oil did they have in it, and where did that oil go? Most places I'm familiar with will run an engine like that for a little while, maybe even an hour, before letting it go out the door. I've never known a service man to let one loose without oil in it! Hope this all resolves to your satisfaction.
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