Yesterday I took some time to start digging into it to try to eliminate what might be hanging things up. Pulled the starter, no issues there. Tried a pry bar on the ring gear, but no movement. Fan and generator are free to move. I didn't dig into the magneto or governor assemblies. Popped the valve side cover off and there was evidence of some rusty water. Also some stuck valves. At that point, I decided to go ahead and pull the head. Off comes the hood, carb/manifolds, etc. I'm amazed how easy it is to work on this.
Head came off with no issues, but I wasn't too happy about what I saw:
The good news is the liquid in the cylinders is not water. I suspect my friend(PO) probably poured some sort of solvent down the spark plugs in an attempt to free things up and this was probably a good thing. It does look like #2 is the problem child. I'm at a bit of a loss how things got so nasty in there. My friend was pretty diligent about making sure the tractor was sealed up from the weather. I'm starting to wonder if maybe it was a head gasket failure as there was no coolant in the block passages.
Regardless, I've got some work cut out for me. Ultimately, I think I will drop the oil pan and work on popping the pistons out from both ends. I'm not going to feel comfortable putting it back together unless I can get a good look at the cylinder bores. I'm told, the engine was rebuilt prior to my friend purchasing it, so I do have that going for me.
I'll post more info and pics when I have it. Enjoy the long weekend!
-Jim
