New to this forum, and i must say it looks fantastic! lots of helpful people, and lots of great tractor stuff. I bought my "new" 318 in the fall. My first real garden tractor. I searched for quite some time for a machine that could bag vast amounts of leafs, and clear alot of sloped, fairly steep, slippery driveway, and decided on this 318. came with power blower/catcher for leaves and the auger snowblower. It did a great job with the leaves. I was so excited to plow the driveway on this first winter storm in chicago. Well, i tried plowing without the chains, (1st mistake) and the driveway was too slippery, so i went to go get the chains and while doing that, the engine started sounding different, almost like it was on choke. Well, the engine then quit, and now won't start. The starter seems to want to crank it over, but can't so i get a grinding noise. I fear the worst, a siezed engine. There was oil in it, my only concern is that it was parked on a hill for a while, could the oil have drained back leaving no lubrication? is there an oil pump on these Onan engines? I am fairly mechanical, but haven't dealt with tractors too much. Usually if instructed well i can find the problem. my question now is, where do i start? What can i look for to figure out if this engine is done? I'm assuming that since it started ok that it is nothing electrical, and the snow thrower wasn't on and it was in neutral so i don't think its anything related to those two issues. I'm just praying someone with a good knowledge of these machines has seen this before. I don't really want to have to start the post of "so what's the best repower engine" :banghead3 although i'm pretty sure that that is coming.
Posts by ams4life
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wow, amazing help already, i hope to dive in to some of the possible solutions today. Some i think i can eliminate. about the gas, my first thought walking back to the machine was.....oh my, i hope that thing ran out of gas. So i did check that. however, there are no dumb questions with me....it wouldn't be the first time i missed something obvious. I don't think it's the battery either. I was able to try and crank it over a bunch of times and it seemed very strong. so i believe that the battery is fine. i charged it last night, so i will try again today with a full charge. I pulled the plugs yesterday, hopefully this will shed some light. The plugs seemed to be ok, certainly no mechanical damage. I'm more used to seeing 2 cycle plugs with alot of soot. These were dry, but i figured thats normal, and they had a greyish color which i think seems normal. I did not hear any large bang like a rod blowing through or anything. when it quit. When i was trying to turn it over yesterday, it appeared to me that the flywheel was moving......sounds like a dumb question but i want to be sure, the flywheel should be facing the back of the tractor correct? I can't see any other place it would be as the shaft is on the front. It was difficult to see, but there appeared to be some movement. I guess first things first is to see if the shaft is moving freely, then we can move past the pistons and cylinders. Thank you all so very much, and i will keep you updated.
i just tried turning it over again, to no avail, did not do the jumper cables, but the charger said the battery was at full charge, i think i see what is the flywheel, but i can't see the fins as it has a cover over it. Am i looking in the right spot or do i need to get farther in? When i cranked it, that cage did spin, but i don't know for sure that that was the flywheel spinning. i did try moving it by hand, but with no fins to grab i couldnt move it at all. To try and move that flywheel should i pull the plugs to eliminate compression? finally where would be a good place to grab the driveshaft to test that?
OK, starting to breathe a sigh of relief. It appears to be turning over. The shroud is spinning pretty good when i turn the key, and i could watch the teeth move inside that hole in the air cabin. I tested the spark, and got spark on both sides. So here's where I am at. It died while running, i have spark, it seems to be turning over. I am still having a horrible grinding noise when i try to start it. I have the 218 engine. I'm assuming to get to the carb, you will want me to pull off the whole air intake cabin. Before i get into that though, do you think it would be related to the new noise that is going on when i try to start it? Seems at this point if its turning over something else has to be locking up or be stuck at startup? although i don't how anything electrical would have killed the engine while running if i am getting spark. BTW, it has the 50th anniversary badge on the side, can anybody get me the year of this model by that? thanks again.
sorry for the delay, life is gettin busy. Here's the new update. I pulled off the air breather, got to the fuel line going into the carburator. Problem was when i tried to start the battery was dead because i decided to leave the ignition on last time Doh! :banghead3 So I'm waiting for a charged battery, in the mean time i pulled off the rear fender cover. I tried turning the drive shaft at the yoke, but couldn't get it to turn by hand. But considering that its connected to the hydro shouldn't that be real hard to turn anyway? It is in free wheel right now. I had one long hard manual push up a snowy driveway 
When i pulled that gas line i didn't get any fuel coming out, and the fuel filter is empty. So maybe it is a fuel issue? After I get a battery, and check the fuel line, if i get nothing i will try the reserve to see if i can get any fuel coming through that way. If the line is emptied, how long would i have to crank to get fuel going through the entire line again? and someone mentioned that i shouldn't crank over if the cylinders are flooded? if its been sitting this long i dont think that should be an issue. Still should i check for this? if so, how? and is there anything else i should check for before cranking this thing over a bunch of times? I cannot see the cylinder heads through the spark plug holes, there seems to be some type of interior piece that seems to shield the plug. Seem kind of odd to me, but its consistant on both sides so it must be ok. Lucky for me, the guy who sold it to me gave spare parts for virtually every part of the electrical system from an old 318 he had that ironically enough blew a piston, so if its electrical.....there's a good chance i have a spare part
When i pulled that gas line i didn't get any fuel coming out, and the fuel filter is empty. So maybe it is a fuel issue? After I get a battery, and check the fuel line, if i get nothing i will try the reserve to see if i can get any fuel coming through that way. If the line is emptied, how long would i have to crank to get fuel going through the entire line again? and someone mentioned that i shouldn't crank over if the cylinders are flooded? if its been sitting this long i dont think that should be an issue. Still should i check for this? if so, how? and is there anything else i should check for before cranking this thing over a bunch of times? I cannot see the cylinder heads through the spark plug holes, there seems to be some type of interior piece that seems to shield the plug. Seem kind of odd to me, but its consistant on both sides so it must be ok. Lucky for me, the guy who sold it to me gave spare parts for virtually every part of the electrical system from an old 318 he had that ironically enough blew a piston, so if its electrical.....there's a good chance i have a spare part ok, with the battery charged. and now with a great view with the fender cover off, flywheel is turning fine. Drive shaft is turning fine. I could not get a good grip with my hand, but by puttin a screwdriver in the yoke i got it to turn easily. So yay, no engine seizing. Im still getting no fuel from either the reserve or main lines. However, i'm beginning to think its starter related. Based on the noise, the grinding it makes kind of sounds like something is not engaging correctly. could it be that bendix rod you were talking about? The other thing is while watching the starter and turning the key, the starter moves, or jumps, a bit. Could it be moving because something is jamming up? I guess we still can't rule out the battery either. Should i be pulling the starter, and running the starter and battery over to autozone to have them checked? Also, it looks to me like you'd have to pull the engine to get to the starter, that true? If so this baby is getting transported to my dad's heated workshop. The cold snap we just got here makes working in my garage far less enjoyable.
sorry, long time no post. Got really busy, but i have now diagnosed one source of the problem. the grinding noise is solved. The gear that comes from the starter is not fully engaging the flywheel. we tried adding washers in between the starter and the engine block to shim it, however, it seems like the starter needs to somehow get closer to the engine. Hard to explain, but its not that the gear isn't coming out far enough, it's that the gear seems to be too far away to grab fully. Like somehow i need to get that starter mounted closer to the block to get that gear in the right place. Any suggestions? my only thought was to shim the outside bolt, that way it would kind of twist the end of the starter in towards the flywheel. But to me, thats seems like im only treating the symptom, and not the actual problem. Any help? On the positive note, im now well experienced at pulling a 318 Onan engine And at least i have found one problem. We did one experiment. We had the starter slightly loosened, and my dad wedged a screwdriver in there to keep that starter more towards the engine, and it did eliminate that noise, so we know that was the issue, the bendix gear was slipping on the flywheel. So my ultimate question is why did it start doing that? and how do i get it right? seems to me there is no way to shim that thing left to right, that you can only shim it back and forth on the two bolts that secure it to the block.
And at least i have found one problem. We did one experiment. We had the starter slightly loosened, and my dad wedged a screwdriver in there to keep that starter more towards the engine, and it did eliminate that noise, so we know that was the issue, the bendix gear was slipping on the flywheel. So my ultimate question is why did it start doing that? and how do i get it right? seems to me there is no way to shim that thing left to right, that you can only shim it back and forth on the two bolts that secure it to the block.it is a newer starter, so he might have put on the wrong one. But why did is start ok during the full fall season? also, when i look on ebay, the starters that come up for the 318 onan all look the same. I'm going to attempt to draw the problem in ms paint, so hopefully you can understand better than i can tell it.
I will be headin back over to the folks house tomorrow to try and get some work done on this thing. To answer the few questions since the last post, it is a P218 engine. I can't check the numbers today, but i am almost positive it is a knockoff. however, my issue doesn't seem to be that it doesnt have enough juice, but that its not lining up right, and i had no problems using this machine all fall for leaves. 2nd, why did it decide to do this after the thing conked out. Which seems to most likely be a fuel delivery issue now. Was is just a strange coincidence? Now, i do have what i believe is an onan starter, the guy gave me a bunch of spare parts, however, it is a way different setup than the one on. It doesn't have a bendix rod attached to it, and had a few other differences to it. I know that i would need to buy additional parts to get it on, it appears there would be no way to put it on as is. I will check that nut, but again it appears to need an adjustment to get the gear in the right spot. So let me ask this, could i shim that outside bolt to twist the starter back in towards the engine? the gears wouldn't be perfectly aligned, but they would at least reach each other, or would this type of rig job just land me more problems? I don't want to grind on the teeth of the flywheel anymore, so i can't really address my fuel delivery problem until the starter is fixed.
2nd, i have questions about the fuel system, so if i do get this starter problem solved i can hopefully start tackling problem #2 right away. How exactly does the fuel delivery work? The best we could tell is that its a vacuum system. Is that true? If so what parts do i have to look at for a blockage, or a break in the vacuum?
Ok, i've got the starter working good enough for now. Might need some fine tuning later. But i want to get this thing running. So again, it seems to be the fuel not getting through. I'm going to start replacing lines. However, is there any other things i should be looking for. That solution just seems to simple for me. Is there a filter on the lines in the fuel tank i should be looking at? Can the fuel pump go bad? Is there anything that can go wrong in the crankcase that i should look for? Also, is there a way to test the main tank, reserve tank, no fuel switch? It's definantly not creating a vacuum because we tried to get it started by pouring a little fuel in the carb, and it wants to start, but its just running out of fuel.
Sorry again, another long time with no post. Have gotten some work done though. I have determined it is not a vacuum issue. Put a funnel in a fuel line straight to the carb. Still doesn't want to start. However, while cranking over again and again, eventually got fuel coming out of the fuel filter. So at least i know its not fuel. now, im pretty clueless where to go from here. The next thing i guess i was going to try was taking apart and cleaning the carb. Spark plugs seem ok, but im going to replace those anyway. Is there any other suggestions? i might try to post a you tube video of trying to start it if you think that would help.
well, got good news! She's running again. Although i do need a new starter. I want to THANK everyone who helped me out. I learned alot about this machine from you. now my last question would be this, wheres a good place to go for maintenance parts? oil filters, air filters etc.? any good websites out there? and any opinion on aftermarket vs. john deere parts? ive almost always gone with aftermarket parts for anything fix up. John deere parts just seem so ridiculously expensive that the aftermarket parts seem to be the better option even if they aren't as good. any advice? any parts websites out there?
To be honest, we are not totally sure. I think the big factor was new plugs. We tested for spark initially with both plugs and got spark. However, i think the spark must have been weak because that was really the only thing that we changed. However, the starter cashed out so its still not running for sure. The starter might have been part of the problem too, but we had that tested at an auto parts store and that passed too. So hopefully when someone types in "won't start" and sees this, the one piece of advice i can give is replace the plugs, even if you get spark! for a couple bucks, it's worth it even if it is not the problem.
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