Well, I must be the oil changing axle greasing nerd cause I do it religously every year. my 20 year old LT4000 axles looks like high polished crankshafts. I'm also the idiot that's completely disassembles my LT's to clean, inspect, and lovingly put it back togather. This also includes washing out the gas tanks and the wiring harness for cracks or bare wires. My 400 dollar LX266 looks like new under the fenders and hood.

Now some of you guys will laugh me out of town for this one. I worked part time at a motorcycle shop back in the late '80s. By that time a lot of the bike engines were black in color. Sometimes it would be difficult to pin point an oil leak against this black background. First step to finding the leak was to clean off the area with spray on engine cleaner followed by a good rinse. Then we dried the engine with compressed air (but you can use a leaf blower as an effective substitute). To provide contrast color, we would use a "spray deodorant/anti-perspirant" that had talcum powder in it's formula. We would spray the suspect parts, seals, gaskets, seams, etc. with enough of the powder to turn everything white. Then we would run the engine and watch the area. As soon as the oil leaks past its defective containment part, it will turn the powder brown. There is your leak. The powder washes off with detergent and water.

Hello, semi-purist here. If you are not reasonably experienced in "torquing" fasteners, or would call yourself a novice, I suggest you obtain a torque wrench. Rusty KNOWS what tight feels like, but he sometimes forgets that it is a talent that comes from years of experience (Big grin :^). Even if you "have the knack", it can vary from day to day, or even with the time of day (you don't want to hear that story). I also suggest that you go ahead and buy the service manual from Briggs. It is a small investment when factored against the prospect of always taking the machine to a pro shop. Not that I have anything against pro shops, I just always advise folks who think they might want to get into "the heavy stuff", to have all the "tools", including the OEM service manual. Also, be sure to follow another of my standard suggestions (for all disassembly procedures of any/all components), TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOS of your disassembling in "step by step" fashion. Shoot from different angles so you capture every aspect of how items are fastened, routed, oriented, etc. Using a digital camera makes this a painless and cheap "diary" of the whole deal. Rusty's plan above will work. I'll add that any pulleys on the PTO end of crankshaft have to be removed before the sump can be removed. I have provided a link to the Briggs online IPL below. You can download a copy to your computer, it's PDF. The gasket for sump is item 12, Briggs part # 697227. You should also replace the crankshaft seal, item 20, Briggs # 690947. While the sump is removed from the crankcase, clean all rust from the exposed part of the crankshaft (everything that is outside of the seal contact point). Inspect this area of the crank for burrs or any other defect that might cut the new seal. There is also another thread currently active wherein another member is doing a similar gasket replacement. I'll post a link to that one. Just don't be deterred by the "thrashing" we gave happy123, he sort of set the stage for it and I'm not so sure he wasn't yanking our collective chains (now that I look back, I wonder). Here is a link that might be useful: Briggs IPL for 446677

hellerlake wrote ... "The arborist's chips I have gotten always came full of shredded leaves and/or needles which begin to break down immediately. There's plenty of nitrogen/organics. As for mulched beds that have not loosened up, what were they mulched with? Bark? Bark is naturally imbued with a waxy substance to protect the tree from moisture. It's suberized. It never really breaks down, and incorporates into the soil because of the suberization. Eventually, it breaks down into waxy, little fibers that form a crust on top of the soil. " An arborist friend once had a 25' tall birch tree-spade moved to his front yard. To start, the hole was half where the lawn was, and half in shrub bed that was never rototilled - same soil to start - but had a barkdust layer maintained for at least 10 years. The half circle in the lawn when dug, was pretty much unchanged. But old bark had decomposed enough to improve the bed soil. Down to 12" depth it was darkened some, and crumbled. It was handy to have seen the side-by-side comparison where the soil history was known, to see the change on the bark side, versus the lawn compacted by mower tires and bag weight side. Sometimes I've applied both. The last home in south Oregon, I put down about 8 truck loads of the chipped tree branches first, then laid barkdust on top for a more groomed look. 20 years ago, when we got about 30 big truckloads at my mother's 2nd acre in Beaverton, the wood chips with plenty of branch wood broke down pretty quick, which was nice. Thought it may be worth adding ... One golf course superintendent I worked under at Columbia Edgewater Country club in Portland, some year back, used to add fine barkdust to the sand for some of the new greens. It was because they decomposed - but decomposed slowly. The new greens were about 3% to 5% bark and the rest sand. His education was in agronomy. From what I've seen since then, the method makes sense.