[mikeylikesit5805]

Hello, My father recently picked up a 60" Hustler with a 25HP Kaw. When it was purchased I could tell it had a small oil leak because around the motor was freshly cleaned, but the harder spots were covered in oil and dust. Its not a bad leak but it is def getting worse. I did some research on here and and it seems like this is pretty common for these 25HP Motors. I guess its likely either the breather plate or the crank seal. I want to say it has about 1000 hours.


How do I go about Diagnosing where the leak is coming from? Any quick spots to check? Any tell tale signs to look for? It does appear to be leaking evenly down the rear middle of the engine which makes we wonder if its the breather seal.

 

[Justin Hightower]

Hard to tell needs the shroud removed and a good cleaning and run it and go from there. But if it were me and I'm doing my own work, I would just replace all the seals. Top crank seal, breather gasket, both valve covers (go ahead and adjust valves while you're there), oil cooler seal (behind oil filter), dipstick seal, oil drain, and lower crankcase seal. Yea it's alot, but you're gonna be into it with mostly a guess of where the leak is, and you're only probably looking at $40 worth of seals. You'll have something to do over winter, maybe learn some new stuff, and you'll hit the ground running come spring.

 

[sidemouse.ii]

I have that same engine, and I can tell you that removing the shroud and giving it a good cleaning is a definite maintenance procedure for these... The gunk and dirt that accumulates on these is just unreal, so I would take this opportunity and do that.

On the note of the oil leak, from those pictures it might be the dipstick tube seal.

Personally speaking with these things I like to replace seals going from easiest to hardest and top to bottom. Usually once you remove the shrouds you should be able to tell if the top crank seal is leaking so there's an excuse to remove those and give it a good cleaning. Valve covers (and since it probably needs a valve adjustment anyway) would likely be next.

As well it could be the oil filter gasket, although rare it's not unheard of.

I would further refer to Justin's post, he pretty much covered it.

 

[Breezmeister]

The only thing I'll add to this is the shop manual, just so you have an idea of how to do it. To clean it, I have compressed air and alot of breakclean. If you don't have air, a stiff brush and alot of shop rags will work.

Good luck.