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Alright, so I've had this Craftsman LT2000 for about a year now, and I absolutely love the thing. It runs fantastic, can't hear a single miss in it anywhere in the rev range.
Last year, I rebuilt it. Everything went pretty well, except for one Achilles heel of a problem. The carburetor. At first the engine ran way to rich. It was a chinese carb that had an adjustment, so I turned it down some. Then upon inspecting the spark plug, I found it was running too lean. I readjusted it towards the richer side, and it may have been too rich. So I went back and fourth with it almost until the end of last season until I decided to replace it with another that did not have an adjustment. After doing so, the tractor appears to be running just fine. Upon inspecting the spark plug, it is not too rich nor too lean in my opinion, but I'm keeping a close eye on it. It's an acceptable brown slightly on the richer side.
Anyways, I got curious and decided to run a compression test on it. At first, I put it on cold. I don't even know what the point of that was but I did it anyways. I was pretty spooked when I cranked and reset the tester twice only to get up to 90 something. I had no idea how it could be running the way it was, yet put out 90. Then I remembered that it had ACR and that I just don't remember anything for some reason. After running it for a few minutes, the tractor did the same thing for the first couple of seconds, just 90 something, and then you could hear a click (from the ACR disengaging) and the tester flew up to 195 PSI. I didn't believe this, so I did it again, same result. I then took the tractor over too my neighbor's place, a mechanic for many years. He said that there was no way that was right and that it was because I had gas going into it while testing.
So I took it back home to try again. This time, I unplugged the fuel solenoid so it would stay closed while I cranked it and would cut off fuel. By now it was fully warmed up from me driving it around, so it first went to 90 for about 2 seconds, then jumped up to almost 210 PSI on the tester. Took it back over to my neighbor's place and he said no way again, he suggested that it could still get gas even if it was a small bit with the solenoid closed. I took his word for it, so this is what I did. Disconnected the fuel line from the carb and put it in a seperate container. Started it up until it ran all the gas out of the carb and then ran on choke to make sure it was fully gone followed by a few cranks afterwards. Then I pulled the wire from the solenoid at the bottom of the carb again just in case. I then also pulled the plug and cranked it over a few times before I put the tester on.
Cranked it over and it shot right back up to 210. I figured maybe the throttle was messing with it so I moved it from where it was at idle to full throttle no choke. Exact same result of 210. My question is, is this normal? I don't know what these engines are supposed to put out in terms of PSI, but I figured it was less than that. It has an 8:7:1 compression ratio. My Honda powered DLT 3000 put out 120 PSI fully warmed up. That is supposed to be an 8:0:1 engine I'm pretty sure. So my question is, can anyone on here confirm this is normal or at least ok? Or do I have to worry about something. Thanks in advance.
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Last year, I rebuilt it. Everything went pretty well, except for one Achilles heel of a problem. The carburetor. At first the engine ran way to rich. It was a chinese carb that had an adjustment, so I turned it down some. Then upon inspecting the spark plug, I found it was running too lean. I readjusted it towards the richer side, and it may have been too rich. So I went back and fourth with it almost until the end of last season until I decided to replace it with another that did not have an adjustment. After doing so, the tractor appears to be running just fine. Upon inspecting the spark plug, it is not too rich nor too lean in my opinion, but I'm keeping a close eye on it. It's an acceptable brown slightly on the richer side.
Anyways, I got curious and decided to run a compression test on it. At first, I put it on cold. I don't even know what the point of that was but I did it anyways. I was pretty spooked when I cranked and reset the tester twice only to get up to 90 something. I had no idea how it could be running the way it was, yet put out 90. Then I remembered that it had ACR and that I just don't remember anything for some reason. After running it for a few minutes, the tractor did the same thing for the first couple of seconds, just 90 something, and then you could hear a click (from the ACR disengaging) and the tester flew up to 195 PSI. I didn't believe this, so I did it again, same result. I then took the tractor over too my neighbor's place, a mechanic for many years. He said that there was no way that was right and that it was because I had gas going into it while testing.
So I took it back home to try again. This time, I unplugged the fuel solenoid so it would stay closed while I cranked it and would cut off fuel. By now it was fully warmed up from me driving it around, so it first went to 90 for about 2 seconds, then jumped up to almost 210 PSI on the tester. Took it back over to my neighbor's place and he said no way again, he suggested that it could still get gas even if it was a small bit with the solenoid closed. I took his word for it, so this is what I did. Disconnected the fuel line from the carb and put it in a seperate container. Started it up until it ran all the gas out of the carb and then ran on choke to make sure it was fully gone followed by a few cranks afterwards. Then I pulled the wire from the solenoid at the bottom of the carb again just in case. I then also pulled the plug and cranked it over a few times before I put the tester on.
Cranked it over and it shot right back up to 210. I figured maybe the throttle was messing with it so I moved it from where it was at idle to full throttle no choke. Exact same result of 210. My question is, is this normal? I don't know what these engines are supposed to put out in terms of PSI, but I figured it was less than that. It has an 8:7:1 compression ratio. My Honda powered DLT 3000 put out 120 PSI fully warmed up. That is supposed to be an 8:0:1 engine I'm pretty sure. So my question is, can anyone on here confirm this is normal or at least ok? Or do I have to worry about something. Thanks in advance.
I also uploaded a video of it running. As you can hear, it runs very well.
