I copied this post from Mark over to this thread to get this rolling. Maybe this thread should be in sections like engine, oil injection, lubrication, suspension etc??? I will try to clean up and combine the posts to keep them on subject and helpfull with trouble shooting a "new to you" sled. This will take some time but all suggestions are welcome!
mswyka
Sr. Member
Posts: 433
Re: Running premix instaed of pump
« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2015, 07:13:16 AM »QuoteModifyRemoveSplit TopicWe have purchased, and been given, multiple Kawasaki sleds over the course of the past decade. After reviewing the information provided with each sled and performing our own forensic analysis we find a fairly familiar theme related to oil management and engine operation. This is the way we believe it plays out:
1. Kawasaki sleds are susceptible to crank seal failure.
2. The owner either does not know about this or is not willing to believe that this is the case. They find that they lose compression and then see the top of the piston and the top ring chewed up and assume that there was not enough oil to keep things lubricated.
3. They don't have a clutch puller and therefore cannot take the engine out of the chassis so they only replace the pistons.
4. Again assuming a lack of oil they assume oil pump failure and switch to pre-mix only to have the problem repeat itself.
5. The sled sits for a year or two or more before it comes to us. Tearing the engine down the first thing we see is that the crank seals are shot - usually the mag side, but every once in a while the PTO side.
It is a very sad story, but one that seems to repeat itself all too often. The long and the short of this tale is that we have found the Kawasaki engine and its oil injection system to be extremely reliable. We have also learned that every engine that we take in needs to be torn down, inspected and rebuilt to factory specification before attempting to use it. Any time we have been tempted to take short cuts we have had engine failure. Each time we cover all the bases we build engines that run, and continue to run reliably season after season.
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