You had better park it right now. Further use will just push it closer to oblivion. You stated some very significant symptoms that pretty well confirm you have AT LEAST........a head gasket leaking, but your water pump is also likely defective. And I don't mean "one or the other", I mean you probably have BOTH defects present. The cup or so of coolant by the left front tire is either leaking from the radiator recovery jug (overflow tank), or from the water pump weep hole, or both places. Your statement regarding the radiator & recovery jug, "They dont leak- I can fill them and check the next day and they are still full." is "partly true". They might not leak in the sense of having a hole or crack, but they are certainly "bleeding & venting pressure" during engine operation. What is happening is the head gasket is leaking combustion gases (under high pressure) into the cooling system and raising the pressure above the vent relief value of the radiator cap (usually 13 PSI). As the gases (and pressure) enter the cooling system, the radiator cap begins venting the excess pressure (along with coolant and combustion gases) into the coolant recovery jug. As the venting continues the recovery jug overfills, it begins to dump coolant out of its overflow tube. The loss of coolant from the radiator will decrease somewhat as the coolant level drops to a lower point, but the gases continue to be vented into the recovery jug and create a frothy mix of gases which continue to carry coolant out of the recovery jug (because the jug is "not pressurized"). The 13 PSI in the radiator keeps the foaming/frothing from happening there, but the recoery jug has not pressure cap. Since your engine has over 1,100 hours on it, and your have now experienced this very serious failure, it would be prudent to tear the engine down to inspect the crankshaft, camshaft, and related bearings. Inspect the cylinder walls for scoring (pre-galling streaks). You will also need to replace the water pump (it is probably worn anyhow) if the engine is still salvable. Radiator should ideally be flushed out (internal flush as well as complete cleaning of the core fins exterior). New radiator cap and a new thermostat will be needed too, if the engine is salvable. Click the link to read another recent case very similar to yours. Here's what happens after you cut off the engine. First, the pressure in the cooling system immediately drops to 13 PSI (because that is the value of the relief valve setting). With 13 PSI pressure in the cooling system, a small amount of coolant will be forced past the defective spot in the leaking head gasket and into the cylinder. This is why you are experiencing "hard to crank", the cylinder is "hydro-locking". Here is a link that might be useful: 425 Kaw engine total loss?

You may have just entered the twilight zone. Questions: *How could left bank be this far out on valve adjustment, and right side be OK, unless it was built this way to begin with? (You did not state whether the "out of spec" valve adjustments were "too little clearance" or "too much clearance", but due to the ingestion of abrasives being part of the story, I'm figuring "too little clearance".) > With no IPL to view, and with Deere & Kaw in the bedroom with the door locked, it's hard to guess just how this FD671D engine is configured on YOUR Deere! But there are some "possible" conditions that "might" produce a condition of excess valve clearance on one cylinder and not the other......and it has NOTHING TO DO with the initial, factory adjustment. And you should read carefully here, it could have some significance in regard to whether this engine should even be repaired, whether you and Deere split the costs, or Deere pays all, or you pay all. Here Goes! If this engine has either of the following induction system types: (1) Two-barrel carburetor with separate plenums from carb inlet to the intake valves. (2) EFI with twin throttle body injectors and separate plenums from TB inlet to the intake valves. Either of those could result in one cylinder receiving the lion's share of airborne dirt that was entering "down stream" from the air filter. This would have caused the intake valve of one cylinder to be fed MORE abrasives than the other cylinder. This grit wears away the faces of the valves and their mating surfaces on the valve seats, resulting in the valves "sinking deeper" into the head, and the neccessary valve lash disappears. The intake valve suffers more than the exhaust valve because of the inherent stickiness of the intake valve surfaces, the exhaust valve surfaces are "blistering hot' and so less of the abrasives get "caught" between valve and seat. But the problem goes way beyond just the valves. The piston and rings get slammed too (and ultimately, the entire engine). And the piston feature two distinct types of rings. They are the compression rings, and the oil control rings. Piston compression rings are not "just sitting there" with a nice tight fit to the cylinder walls constantly. Piston rings are flexible (and must be free to move) and actually inflate when the piston moves upward to compress the air/fuel charge in the cylinder. The compression rings are pushed to the bottom of the ring groove where a "contact pressure seal" is formed between the ring and the bottom of the ring groove. With the seal established there, the compression pressure builds against the piston ring "inside diameter" surfaces causing the ring to expand and make contact with the cylinder walls. When this occurs, the rings are fully inflated, and the maximum affordable seal has been established. The topmost compression ring (sometimes a.k.a. "fire deck ring") inflates the most and therefore is the ring that wears the most. The second groove compression ring inflates less because it basically inflates using only the "blow by" pressure that escapes past the top ring. Dirt and grit gets blown into the rings and grooves and immediately begins to compromise sealing of the surfaces against one another. This leads to a steady buildup of dirt and eroded metal in the grooves. Not all of this material stays in the grooves. Because of blow by pressure, the dirt and metal is transported downward until it reaches the oil control rings. The oil control rings do not inflate by compression but instead are held tightly against the cylinder walls by an expander/spacer "spring". The edges of the oil control rings are rather sharp and squared off and essentially act as "squeegees" to scrape excess oil downward, and keep the vital oil film from migrating upward into the combustion chamber. The abrasives will soon wear away material from ALL of the piston rings, and the ring grooves, and the piston skirt (which, by the way, is THE ONLY INTENDED part of the PISTON touching the cylinder walls) and of course, the cylinder walls themselves. This produces a rather steady "rain" of junk into the engine crankcase, right into the lube oil. And, if all that wear resulting from direct exposure of the engine surfaces was not enough!!!, there's more. As time goes by, the air filter begins to collect dirt and as a result, is less able to pass air through the filter media, restricting the air flow to a lower volume. But.....the restricted air filter just means that more air volume will be drawn through the breach in the filter system, along with more grit. As the wear in the cylinder worsens, all the abrasives have a much larger and easier path to the engine crankcase. Very soon, the lube oil filter will have collected and trapped enough of this material to reach its "capacity" and the bypass valve in the filter will unseat, permitting unfiltered oil to be fed to all parts of the engine. The concept of a bypass valve in a full flow lube oil system is based on the idea that "dirty oil is better than no oil". That could be true, but only if the bypass condition was temporary. How would you KNOW if the filter was in bypass mode? You wouldn't! The oil filter on this engine was almost certainly bypassing unfiltered oil, and abrasive material. These small oil filters have just a very small capacity for catching solid particles under NORMAL conditions. They are actually only intended to screen out the occasional piece of grit or carbon that makes its way back to the oil pump inlet. The volume of solid material getting into an engine through a breach in the air filter system is several times greater than what the capacity of the oil filter amounts to. *? Any advice on how to handle this? I would not personally feel comfortable with accepting this engine if repaired, and I mean no matter who foots the bill. For all the reasons I cited above, this engine can not be returned to a satisfactory state in regard to all the wear that takes place when an engine is operated with a constant diet of dirt and grit. My position is that the entire engine has sustained premature and excessive wear to ALL internal parts that come in contact with the dirty induction air stream or the resultant contaminated lube oil, and that means NO engine parts have escaped the abrasion and wear. Nothing less than a complete engine would be acceptable for me. How you handle it is up to you and your own convictions. I think it is significant to your case that the comment was made by the shop personell that it "doesn't look like it has ever been sealed". Whether they are willing to admit having made that statement, remains to be seen. Situations like this almost never get resolved to the full satisfaction of the consumer because there are usually too many technical concepts to get across to a judge and jury for your case to be realistically argued. Plus the fact of "Burden of proof". How would one ever PROVE that they themselves did not take that air filter loose on the first day they had the machine because they wanted to see everything?? As outlandish as that comment may sound here, it would certainly be brought up in court by any defense lawyer. Good luck in your pursuit of a settlement but unless Deere or Kaw are feeling "charitable", I think they will just offer you minimal consideration, or none at all.

Following the uphill with engine running ... and downhill with it not ... made it home without further incident. I'd had further trouble, in that the warning lights on the dash that turn on when one turns the key on but go off when the car starts ... had been staying one. And the engine was running much too fast when it was sitting, idling. On Monday morning, checked oil - O.K., down a little, added some. Checked coolant, down a little, added some. Had moved car from garage to by the house ... then it didn't want to start ... after sitting for about an hour, it did. Stopped at the end of the lane to get the mail, turned engine off - wouldn't start. Pushed it back up a slight rise in the lane, pushed it down to get started, but not enough speed to start. Let it sit for a half hour - wouldn't start. Called CAA ... they said it's be about 45 min, later auto meesage said about an hour, but the tow truck arrived in about 45 min., asked what was wrong, I said starter wouldn't turn engine over. He asked about tapping the starter with a hammer ... but couldn't find it, told me to try to start, I said he should, that I'd tried ... ... so he did ... and it started! After some colourful language on my part, I told him that I'd be O.K ... and took off immediately, before the engine heated. I thought after I was on the road that I should have asked him whether he'd come from the city, in which case he could follow me down the road that I was going on for about 6 mi., till I turned away from the city, about a half mile from the garage. More of the operating uphill, not downhill for about 5 miles, till engine began missing some as I was climbing an overpass over a freeway. So, over the top, I stopped at the side of the road for some recuperative/cooling time - though I hadn't seen the heat gauge rise high, but it rises slowly and I'd been running the engine in short bursts. Too impatient, I guess (not wanting to sit, doing nothing? maybe should have brought a book?) ... ... after 10 - 15 min., pushed it a bit, it started rolling down the hill, the engine started ... ... but it was still missing ... and after a few hundred feet of travel .. stopped, so I coasted to the side of the road. Within a mile of the garage, I walked there, they pushed the car in. It seems that the belt driving the alternator had broken, that produces electricity to replenish the battery's charge. Though it seems that the belts running the water pump, power steering pump, etc. were intact, for some reason the water pump wasn't working ... so, with very little water circulating through the radiator to cool it, the water in the motor heated rapidly. Power brakes and power steering were operating O.K. Fortunately, they'd replaced my battery last month, so I'd been running on that one battery charge for all of that time. If I'd known of the need, I could have recharged the battery Sat. overnight, at home. This library closes at 4, so no dice here on Monday, after the garage... and only the downtown London library opens on Monday ... but parking meters near it are rather expensive ... so sometimes I park half a mile away, then walk ... but didn't, yesterday. However ... I'd made a special call to son on Sat. night, saying that I had pizza ... and would bring it on Sunday ... ... but had forgotten, and had supper with son on Sunday. So I took the pizza in on Monday and we had pizza for supper; forgetful Dads can be something of a pain. I'd thought to go to the city library after, but went home instead. So - it looks as though things are back to normal. I'm thankful that, most of the time, when I'm in the car ... it's as full of hot air as necessary ... again! ole joyful

I remember reading that...but it's still just as funny.... I am completely surprised that I didn't find a post from me on there...My DH has done a few things during our 42 years that I tell on him every now and then. patti