Blown Head Gasket? Ariens Deluxe 28 Snowblower Cylinder Head Gasket Replacement

This is my friend Aaron's deluxe 28 snowblower. It belongs to my friend Alan's friend. When I got it yesterday, I couldn't start it by pulling the handle. I had to start it with electric start. And it sounded really funny. When you usually pull start these things, it goes a little bit. This one goes, I'll show you. Like you're losing compression as you're pulling it. Which is probably the reason why it doesn't start easily by pulling. So to me, sounds like it might be a blown head gasket. I'd have to take apart all that stuff. We have to clean the carburetor anyway. Let's just get this cover off. First you gotta take the key out. Let it hang. This thing props up, but you don't want to force it. So you use like a screwdriver. Of course they gotta be assholes and make it eight millimeter. This comes off. Mind the wire on the inside. Primer hose. on and off switch eight millimeter here i don't see anything unusual pull this a little see if we can hear it nothing unusual i guess i'll put this on its face so we can drop the bowl and see what's in the carburetor loosen the bowl nut on this bowl and check out the innards seems to be very clean hole is clear fuel is kind of yellow some debris in there very little a couple of drops of water and too bad I'm gonna remove the main jet in here. Pick it out. There we go. There's the main jet. Some carburetor spray. Blow through. Just clean the carb. Didn't really need it though. I'm gonna take this mesh thing off so I can have access to the holes in the carb. That way I can blow them out and make sure that there's nothing blocking it. So we just cleaned the carburetor. It wasn't very dirty but we did tighten some bolts. See how it sounds. It sounds a little better I think. Thanks. Yes, it's not going to work. A little bit. See how it's loud? I think this is losing compression due to this leak over here. You can hear it. Massive leak right around here. And I used my hand and put it there and I could feel air coming out of the head. Could be a blown head gasket as I suspected. But this is losing compression. No doubt about it. That's why you can't pull start this. It only starts with electric start. So I think that the head gasket is blown. There's nothing wrong with the carburetor, but yet you cannot start it with pull starting. Only when you get enough revolutions to build up compression from the electric start will it start. And that's why it has no power when it's throwing snow. There's a loss of compression. So I'm going to call my friend Alan, ask him to ask his friend whether or not he wants me to dig in deeper to the head gasket. But for now, I've got to go pick up Boba. He's at the groomers. 120 bucks later. Good morning. It's the next day. We're supposed to be getting on and off rain for the next four days, so I'm deep in my garage with all the lights on so I can remove the head and confirm whether or not we need a new head gasket. I'm pretty sure we do. So I looked up the head gasket, right? Believe it or not, it actually costs like twenty dollars for that head gasket. I have seen it for eight dollars, but it's from China and it'll take two weeks to get here. Not that the guy is in any rush. After all, we're still in the fall. We're not anywhere close to getting any snow. However, if I order the $8 one, I'm not going to be able to install it in this video. So anyway, I'm going to remove the cylinder head and we're going to see whether or not I was right from the beginning, whether this is a blown head gasket or not, because it sure sounds like it. As you can see to remove the cylinder head off of this Briggs & Stratton horizontal shaft 1500 series engine you have to take off the entire top part of it gas tank surrounding tins the muffler carburetor spark plug there's a shield that goes over it which covers the two top bolts for the cylinder head so you have to remove everything and the surrounding cosmetic plastic stuff on the side I sure hope I remember how to put that ---- back, but I've loosened all four bolts here and here's the moment of truth. Is it a blown head gasket? Bolts are loose. Here we go. Holy ----. It is absolutely the head gasket. Check this out. And it's trashed right there. And this is typically where it, where it breaks. I have to take a picture of this, okay? While that was a pain in the ass to remove, there's a smoking gun right there, fellas. Look at that. That is one badly destroyed head gasket. Really bad. Look at that. It's terrible. Of course, I'm going to clean this up and put a straight edge to it and make sure that the cylinder head is not warped from the heat, but man. That's bad. And this is a really stout feeling gasket. So I now I know why it costs $20. You know what I mean? I might just spend the $20 because I think the $20 is the OEM kind. And the kind from China may happen again for $8. So I'll probably order the $20 one. Here are your push rods. They're straight and identical. Some are steel, some are aluminum, but these are both steel Here it is. This head gasket is, this head gasket is done-ski. That's cool. I feel good because this is what I thought it was. If it wasn't this, I don't know what it could be. Aside from maybe a, um, valve adjustment, but the sound was so loud that it just couldn't just be that, you know? Uh, so this was so hot that it melted it and molded it back out of shape. See what I'm saying? That's out of whack. I'm gonna clean this up see if we can get this looking a little better. All right as you guys see I've grinded it down polished it. I put a straight edge to the cylinder head and it's fine cleaned up nicely as well as the interior part of the piston and bore and it's perfect. Really good condition actually still see the cross hatching and not that much carbon buildup which is good. The snowblower was running with the carburetor mostly clean most of its life. because it you don't see a lot of rich or lean evidence. everything else looks good so all we need to do is buy a new head gasket put it on and put the whole top end back on. so since i'm gonna order the $20 one it should be here in like four or five days so uh we'll wait until we get it and we'll put everything back together again and uh this thing should run great uh no loss of power The customer's complaint of the loss of power was because it was losing compression from a blown head gasket. This is obvious and apparent. It needed a new head gasket badly. So I'm happy that what I thought it was, was what it is. And I'm not too happy that I got to put everything back together again because there's a lot of ---- on top you got to put together. Pretty badly designed. A lot of labor involved in putting it back together again. I sure hope I remember how. It's a good thing I have it on video. We'll see you guys in about a week. Hey guys it's been five days since I ordered the head gasket. I paid 18 and change for it. Came today. Not bad. This as you can see is an OEM gasket for the cylinder head of this Briggs & Stratton horizontal shaft 1500 series engine. There it is. Pretty stout. You guys need it? 791-716. That's the one. There's ones that is exactly a square but these have these little diagonal cutouts here covered the engine up while i was away so that nothing contaminates the area now i'm just gonna put the gasket on and try to figure out where all the other top end stuff went because it has been five days i might have forgot me a while i could not for the life of me figure out some of the plastics where they go it wasn't until i went back and looked at my video did i see that oh i had to put this on first and that on first and that created brackets where the holes go So then I can match it up like a puzzle. But yeah, it took me a while. I couldn't figure out how to get some of that stuff on there. What went first? Muffler? Muffler plate? The plastic thing with the muffler plate? No. The plate first, where you have the holes to put the plastic on. That's what it was. Anyway, I think I got it on right. Good indication is that your magnetic tray is empty, which means you used everything. You know, you gotta plug up the holes. That's what she said. So I couldn't find the key and then I remembered the key is hanging here on a string which is very smart. So we changed the head gasket on this took the entire top end off. I topped off a little bit of 5w30 motor oil and also he had a crack on the pulley cover which he tried to glue but it didn't glue well. So I put a piece of black gorilla tape over it and it looks great. Now will it start And run well without it. We'll find out now. So before, when we got it, we could not pull start. We could only start it with the electric start because there was no compression. Here we go. Works great too. I bet you he's not going to feel a loss of power under load now because we changed the head gasket. Head gasket's very important. Now, when you hear, oh, you need a new head gasket, don't think, oh my god, because you're comparing it to like a car. If your car needs a head gasket, yeah, the labor involved in that is like thousands, or a thousand, depending on the car. But a head gasket for a small engine, such as a snowblower, a lawn tractor, or even a push mower, it's very easy as you saw. It did take me a bunch of hours to do it as well as cleaning the carburetor which it really didn't need that much but man it's really satisfying to troubleshoot the snowblower in the beginning and go there's something wrong. You can't pull start it even after cleaning the carburetor and the sound it's just like leaking air somewhere. It's just so loud and even more satisfying to take the whole top end off the engine and to see exactly what you thought it was a blown head gasket. Head gasket's 20 bucks. For push mowers, it's like five bucks. That's exactly what he needed. And now this snowblower should perform very well this winter. This was a very satisfying fix. And it's the first head gasket I've ever done on a snowblower engine. Same ----. 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