OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Engines Questions On Briggs & Stratton Engines Brand New Briggs Seized

And China expects to be another Japan when it comes to credibility with their manufacturing. What a laugh.

Post war Japanese stuff was rubbish, but they quickly realized they had to produce good quality products if the were to become a serious manufacturer on the world stage.Times have changed and I don't think China has ever tried to emulate that, their aim was just to flood the world with cheap products until they had decimated manufacturing world wide, then they can control the markets. I don't think anybody is laughing at China, it has a very controlled strategy to achieve it goals. The only risk to them is if countries that have lost manufacturing and employment can no longer afford to buy the volume of products China needs to manufacture to keep its economy running

Taiwan managed to become another Japan. They used to be the cliche when it came to poor quality imitations, but now their goods are respected.

You have to give the Asians credit for their work ethics, possibly driven by need because of population volumes. Then you look at India, it had British influence for a very long time, has more millionaires than Australias population but the quality control in their manufacturing is very low so it is hard to think they could follow the Asian countries in the future even though their labor costs are very low

Dragged a few of my machines out for a bit of a run this afternoon and stumbled across this. The offending tag in question.

Now if I had just purchased this new engine for a transplant and didn't know any better, I'd have translated that symbol on the right as oil + tick = sufficient oil present = Ready to start! Wouldn't most agree?

Cheers
GTX

Hello all

The whole point of symbols is that they deliver unambiguous meaning.
I totally agree with GTX - oils ain't oils in this case.

-----------------------------------
Jack

Somebody was probably paid good money to come up with that tag. Going by the way BB had his motor replaced I would say he was not the first to be caught out by such stupidity

Two strokes with 200ml added to five litres of petrol is looking better and better the more I read here.

This was my precise argument right from the start and that tag is what lulled me into the false sense of security along with the fact that the previous engine I purchased a week earlier was in a factory sealed unopened carton from Briggs and had a full crank case of oil.

Honestly Briggs must have some ex bank employees working for them as it only seems about money and nothing else with them, just have a look at this new plastic range of Victa named products that they've just released and bashing on tv at us.

What a set back for a once proud name in the garden care industry.

Cheers,
BB.

That sort of thing has gone on for years BB, good solid companies with a history of great products that is gobbled up by another company that strips the assets out of it and continues to sell inferior products under the original banner, it is the way of the corporate world. Eventually there will be no long established companies with a trusted history to be gobbled up, sadly I think we are just about there

Hi Norm,

Yes along with the many rebirthed respected names by the Chinese and then just bastardising the name with inferior products and sending them to their doom.

This new range of Victa's is similar to that stupid red plastic Lawn Beetle.

My view is once you've lost respect what do you actually have left ???????

Cheers,
BB.

BB go easy on the Lawn Beetles, I bought another one yesterday for $10, brought it home and it started first pull, bloke said it wouldn't start, probably had the fuel turned off. He looked a bit confused when I said I cut the body into 4 bits so it fits in the rubbish bin easily. This is the sixth one I have cut up. They are not a bad little motor and by putting a decent blade carrier on them instead of the silly bar blade, they have enough spinning inertia to do a good job. Put them on a decent base with a plastic catcher and they aren't a bad mower. I recently ended up with a couple of these Flymo mowers with dead Briggs on them and it was only when I went to put blade carriers on them I realized they were only a bare 17 inch cut. I also discovered that I had a number of catchers in my pile that fit the Flymo, no idea where they have come from

Looks like a top notch mower with that base and engine combo.

Hey Norm,

I think you need to swap out the catch cry underneath your avatar and change it from Senior Technician to "The Lawn Beetle".


Cheers,
BB.

BB, my missus just found me another Flymo and catcher with a buggered Briggs, now I have to look for another Beetle. Somebody must have been selling these Flymos around here , for me to end up with 3 almost identical in the last few weeks is a bit bizare . Hadn't seen any previously

It's the most comical name for a mower model I've ever heard.

I just heard a story of someone who bought a new Victa with a B&S motor. It had the needs oil on, so the B&S oil was put in. Then motor started, and they mowed for a couple of minutes and , engine made a noise and stopped.
The engine was siezed, but the supplier manages to jiggle the blade bar to free the piston. Got it started and all is OK.
They said they never let the oil soak in enough before starting, but I think the motor was probably revved up, where with a new motor, you should put a teaspoon of oil in cyninder and run it a low revs just to run it in a little. And get the oil slinger inside to work properly.....
There's nothing like starting a new engine.........
speedy

Just to finalise this thread, the replacement engine I got was fitted to my daily drive, the 20 inch Series 1 Model 45.

As mentioned earlier in this thread I also managed to second the original engine back which was seized and I thought I'd hang on to it for parts for the replacement engine should the need arise at some later stage.

Some time later I opened the box that I put away in the shed only to find that the engine hadn't every been removed from the carton and was still in there exactly the same way as I repacked it to go back to Briggs in Victoria. So from that I discovered that there was never a so-called multiple page report written and a strip down as I was told there was going to be just never happened either. Nothing but BS between the Briggs Dealer and myself it seems.

From here something inside of me said "Lets have a Play" and as such I decided as when this engine was originally cooling down I kept the crank turning by hand to stop the rod seizing permanently on the crankshaft. I'd say doing this saved the engine and as such I took the plug out and poured in about 100ml of oil and then again turned the crank slowly using the recoil starter. It freed up rapidly with every pull to the point that it felt nothing had ever happened to this engine. Surplus oil came back out of the spark plug hole and was cleaned up accordingly, then after that I replaced the plug.

Here was the moment of truth..............................................

I poured about 500mls of fuel into the tank, turned on the fuel tap, set the choke to full and pulled the recoil started briskly and the engine fired up like it was only running 5 minutes ago. I will admit it smoked like a train for about 3 minutes which was to be expected with the oil in the top end but that subsided and this engine just sat in the back of my ute unsecured and idled super smoothly for about 7 minutes. I then upped the speed to about halfway and still it just sat there totally unsecured and in the same spot for about half an hour without any strange noises or problems whatsoever. These engines are great, there's no doubt about it.

But in the end, there's one general rule of thumb when fitting a new engine and that is check the oil properly and don't take any sales crap that's attached for granted.

Cheers,
BB.

Well BB that is a good win, doesn't often happen like that. I guess it just isn't worth their labour costs to pull things down, but they need to have the motor returned because if they didn't there would be a flood of people claiming their motor had failed once the word got out that they were just replacing the motors under warranty.

Hi Norm,

It was meant to be the dealer that was supposed to be doing the tear down and report writing. Basically they get nothing out of it, but as the dealer claims you just got to take the good with the bad when your a certified dealership.

But being blatantly lied to by a dealer is not part of the process I'm sure of that.

Cheers,
BB.