[kelley]

Corn harvest is done and I'm back to puttering on my 317 project. Got my rebuilt driveshaft back from the machine shop, and dropped the Kohler KT back in the frame. I should note here that while the engine was on the table, I pulled both heads, cleaned some minor carbon deposits, and was surprised to find it in extremely good shape. Both cylinders had no upper ring-ridges, no bore striations, and the valves/seats looked almost new. Didn't see anything wrong internally when I rotated it, however, with the heads back on, it doesn't seem to have much compression. I'm going to have to dig deeper into that issue before I go much further. Any thoughts?
On a comical note, I ran a "want to buy" ad for a mule drive in a different forum, and caught the attention of several Gambian scammers. Had a little fun at their expense.
Trying to figure out some minor wiring issues from manual diagrams, but otherwise, plodding along at my own pace, which on some days is very slow, especially when buds stop by with a few beers.

 

[tommyhawk]

You didn't mention how you checked for compression. If you were doing it with the plastic bag still on the carb, that may be the problem. If using a compression gage tester, instructions would normally say to have the choke and throttle plates fully open to do the test. This allows a full charge of air to enter the combustion chamber to be compressed.
Did you make sure both heads were flat within .003", and use new head gaskets?

tommyhawk

 

[kelley]

That's a great point! Yes, I used new head gaskets, but I didn't check tolerances. That's a couple of issues I'll look into. Thanx for the response.