Straight pipe exhaust gasket

[jbrewer]

The "Stack" that is often seen is a buggered up block waiting to happen. These Kohler thumpers vibrate a lot, and the top of that stack is a lever multiplying the vibration transferred to the junction between the block and the pipe. It's a poor idea without some way of supporting the "stack".

[Tagcab7]

Originally Posted by kalebevans

When I rebuilt my K341 I had the machine shop drill and thread a couple holes for me. I bought manifold flanges and gaskets made for those old VW bugs that fit great, and I used a muffler made for an old Ferguson or Ford tractor. It is much better than the old muffler I made for it years ago, and looks great, but I still use earplugs because it's borderline too loud. I went that direction because it was much cheaper than a factory muffler replacement.

That’s interesting. Did you use a brace of some kind?

[Tagcab7]

Originally Posted by jbrewer

The "Stack" that is often seen is a buggered up block waiting to happen. These Kohler thumpers vibrate a lot, and the top of that stack is a lever multiplying the vibration transferred to the junction between the block and the pipe. It's a poor idea without some way of supporting the "stack".

Thanks for the reply… and the warning. I really don’t want to mess up the block. I told the PO that I would take good care of it.

[kalebevans]

Originally Posted by Tagcab7

That’s interesting. Did you use a brace of some kind?

Sorry it's been a week. I cut the factory support off the rusted out factory muffler and welded it to the side of the Ford/Ferguson muffler. The new muffler sits entirely under the hood just like the factory one did. I do have a little stack that comes up on the other side of the machine for fun, but otherwise it's fairly hidden. My stack clamps on to the muffler outlet, so if it got bumped it could at least rotate out of the way if I was lucky. I don't have any low branches, so damage to it would have to be my fault in the garage... My reason for the VW part conversion was because I couldn't find a muffler to use where the exhaust entered from the side, so I settled on re-routing it to use a muffler that would fit under the hood. I had hoped to spin the factory elbow, but it was so rusted in that none of my tricks got it out, and I eventually cracked it on accident and had to chisel it out and start from scratch.

[Jim in SC]

Looks good - Fancy! How's it sound? Normal muffled or loud?

[kalebevans]

To be honest, I never heard it run with an original muffler. I picked it up with the side of the factory muffler rusted out, and made my own muffler because I couldn't afford the factory one. After the connecting rod blew out when my dad was running it a few years later, I decided to rebuild the engine and find a better muffler. This one is a fair bit quieter than my homemade one, but still louder than the pepperpot muffler on my Original when standing on the loud side of the machine. The 169 is loud from any side... I can tolerate it without earplugs, but usually wear some on principle now unless I'm just moving it around for a minute. It's much louder than the same muffler on the Ferguson TO-35 sadly.

[darkminion_17]

Originally Posted by Tagcab7

It’s pretty embarrassing but I managed to ruin it. I was pretty upset about it because my goal is to take good care of the machine and I even told the PO I would. It was a hard lesson learned. I was attempting to do a carburetor kit and had it all apart except for one piece. I had only done cleaning on 2 cycle carbs before so I did a lot of research and watched some videos but I knew this would be a learning experience. I stripped out the brass screw head on the main jet and I wish I would have stopped there but I didn’t. I went for an easy out and thought I was doing OK but I ended up breaking the stem that the jet srews into. I think it’s called the emulsion tube. Attachment 109407

The key to not stripping the E tube is not to F!@K with it. As the rusty man said ,plenty on eBay.