# Blown Head Gasket on a 15.5 HP OHV Briggs



## phillipmc (Jan 27, 2008)

Someone gave me a Craftsman riding mower the other day has a 15.5 HP IC Quiet OHV engine on it. Just from looking at it the engine had been sitting up for atleast a year if not longer. I was giving the engine a good look over and spinned the engine with my hand to check compression. It seemed very low so right then i knew i was atleast pulling the head. I removed the engine from the mower to put it on my bench and dug in. Removing the head i saw the head gasket had blown between the port for the push rods and the cyclinder. Iv fixed the issue and the mower runs great now. After rebuilding the carb and doing a "tune up" . 
But my question is, Is this normally where the head gasket blows and what causes them to blow like that ?


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## 30yearTech (Sep 14, 2006)

Well I would say it's not unusual for them to blow there. I see it happen here more then any other area, but I have seen them blow out the top and bottom as well.

I would expect the reason it may blow in that area more often is the amout of space between the head bolts and that area should stay a little cooler, so there is perhaps a little more expansion and contraction between the mounting points.


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## phillipmc (Jan 27, 2008)

Thanks for the explaination 30year. That seems very logical. I was somewhat surprised at the condition of the engine inside. It was in very good condtion. Which isn't normal coming from the person that owned it. I work on a bit of his stuff but he only brings them to me when they tear up. And when he does actually bring the equipment for me to fix it hasn't been serviced since the last time i worked on. and its normally years in between.


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