cylinder heads

[curtisbyrne]

i want to clean my cylinder heads. says every 500hrs so i think its time. is it one of those jobs where if there is no problem and u take it apart and then put it together nothing works??

[dirtdobber]

Curtis I'm not sure what engine you have, but there isn't much to clean. I'm curious about what your literature says to clean. Externally, there is really only one thing to clean that I can think of and that's the cooling fins (assuming you have an air cooled engine). All those fins on the head and block need to be free of oil, dirt build up, mud, leaves, sticks, acorns, or anything else that can clog them up. Those fins are there to cool the engine - all the surface area of the fins exchanges heat with the passing air, and when they are covered up or stopped up they can't cool as well.

Internally, there's not really anything to clean. I"m not the most experienced guy around, but I've never heard of any engine that required removal of the head for cleaning. If you are burning oil you can have some carbon build up....but if it's running good don't take the heads off.

[ARGOJIM]

Being a flathead engine it is possible the manual recommends that, I'm not sure.
A single cylinder flat head engine was supposed to have the heads cleaned every so many hours. One would remove any sheet metal, remove the head, clean the carbon off the inside of the head and the top of the piston along with any air fins, reinstall the head with new head gasket, properly torque the head, replace sheet metal.

[dirtdobber]

A single cylinder flat head engine was supposed to have the heads cleaned every so many hours

Interesting. Particularly with products like Sea Foam available today.

[racerone3]

with the engine hot, pour some automatic transmission down the throat of the carb. you want to almost stall the engine, but DONT STALL IT or it will be a pain to restart. this burns 90% of the carbon deposits off the head, valves and pistons. It will produce a mushroom cloud of white smoke, so outside on a windy day works best. you can repeat several times. look at a spark plug before and after and you should see noticable results

[Andyman]

with the engine hot, pour some automatic transmission down the throat of the carb. you want to almost stall the engine, but DONT STALL IT or it will be a pain to restart. this burns 90% of the carbon deposits off the head, valves and pistons. It will produce a mushroom cloud of white smoke, so outside on a windy day works best. you can repeat several times. look at a spark plug before and after and you should see noticable results

I do this on my older cars and trucks , works great

[North Country Tough]

In regards to the cleaning of a flat head Kohler at 500hrs I believe that this practice was more for a stationary engine running a steady rpm in a slightly different gasoline era,I have had 4 machines with both the 17/18 hp Kohler Flathead twins with ample hours on them with out a head removal and clean and had zero issues with motors running in a Argo with load and variable rpm,s a healthy motor will not build enough carbon to effect its performance.If in fact it is building enough carbon deposits to cause such things as preigniton or running on when shut off chances are that there are bigger issues,if you are not experiencing a problem then as my Dad use to tell me dont go lookin for trouble,and you might loosen up something to get stuck somewhere else and create yourself a issue.Just my one cent advise.NCT

[curtisbyrne]

makes sense... the service manual is for generator applications so i will leave it be engine is running fine. anything i should look into or expect at 800hrs? this engine will idle all day and startsfirst turn of the key without hickups and sputters!

[North Country Tough]

makes sense... the service manual is for generator applications so i will leave it be engine is running fine. anything i should look into or expect at 800hrs? this engine will idle all day and startsfirst turn of the key without hickups and sputters!

Not much that I can think of I put in excess of 2100 hours on my 8 Magnum at that point the engine was passing a bit of oil (burning) ran fine little down on power told this all to the guy that bought it from me some almost twenty years ago he is still running it mind you only a handful of hours a year for the hunt only,good motor for their time.NCT

[curtisbyrne]

how so many hours?? lol

[North Country Tough]

My machine is used daily daily around the farm/cottage pretty much 7 days a week it get run 12 months of the year and a ton of pleasure use,at the time we had Magnums when my father was still with us if the machine was sitting he would grab his gun or fishin pole and was off to the back lakes since 1973ish 3 six,s 5 eight wheelers miled out and sold.NCT

[ARGOJIM]

Most of these manuals were written when leaded gas was still around.

[curtisbyrne]

yes,they recommended using unleaded so it must of been still around