K301a Smoking/Using Oil

[jsoluna]

Well, the 129 has done a lot of work this year. My first Cub Cadet has proven to be both a joy and a time consuming magnet for wife's jealousy. It's a love-hate thing going on here. I started by first doing oil changes over and over again, for every 3 hours of labor on that engine. Eventually, though, it developed smoke on startup and now it smokes after warmup too. It uses about 1/3 qt of oil for every hour of use now. After its been run at WOT for a half hour it will clear up a bit, but you can see the smoke when you mow next to something, and it's worse under a load. I've been sooooo meticulous with the maintenance, I think the poor Cub just didn't know what to do except show it's wounds that had accumulated over the years.

What's my best bet? A rebuild, or an upgrade to a lower-hour engine? I've heard that the Series2 Kohlers were a bit better about oiling themselves on inclines and such, and I live in a very hilly area - and I use the Cub for my lawn care business as well as my own lawn (average about 10hrs a week of heavy use total)

I'm still very careful with the oil, I've never let it drop. I have a hunch though, that I'm the first owner to have taken so much care in this machine. It's happened to me on so many machines - the clean oil after a life of abuse makes the problems come to life

I'm bummed. I understand it couldn't be a perfect first buy, but Ive just put so much of my heart and soul into this machine, here she is now: