Firstly, I'm not sure if a stump grinder counts as Heavy Equipment for the purposes of this forum. Toro stx-38 turned on it's side while running. It landed softly. I don't believe there is any damage to the frame. I shut off the switch just after it rolled over, but it kept running for a bit. It backfired and billowed black smoke before it finally stopped. It caught fire. It was a small fire that was put out shortly with an extinguisher. All I could see was some melting on the protective covering of one of the hydraulic lines. It seems there is a slow hydraulic leek. It's currently resting on it's side, angled about 20 degrees, with the bottom higher than the top. My concern is for the engine at this point. What kind of repairs should I be looking to make? What should I look for in terms of the engine?
Tip it upright, turn the engine over several times by hand, check the oil, blow the baking soda off of it, look over the wiring for any damage, have a hose ready before you start it, replace any hose that shows metal. Start it up and watch carefully for five minutes, shut off, check oil, air filter, hydraulic level. Watch carefully the first five minutes working, then forget it ever happened.
I would also pull the spark plugs before spinning the engine over. And... to add to that once you determine if the fire started from landing on the battery side and burning some wiring or from the hot exhaust on the chips or some other reason(fuel line broke)??? you may need to repair any burned wiring besides the obvious air-cleaner stuff. Oh.... and make sure you check the hydraulic fluid level in case some leaked out while tipped.
Thank you both for your replies. I was concerned that rebuilding the engine might be necessary. The owner is afraid that the engine is ruined and said something about oil getting in the heads from being turned over. From my understanding, the real concern is damage due to the engine running without oil. Do I have that right?
Either one will damage it. The oil in the cylinders is why I suggested turning it over by hand several times before starting,a nd why Ronsii said to take the plugs out (especially if you can't get it to turn by hand!). Running for a few seconds is no problem for most engines in that situation. Small gas engines are not typically economical to rebuild, they're replaced.
Kohler has a bulletin on that engine that it sometimes is hard to get the oil pump to prime with oil after it has had major work. Make sure it gets oil pressure right away when you first start it. Don't just run it for extended time hoping it will prime itself.
Thanks again Delmer and Thank you, Birken.
I've followed the above advice as best I could. We discovered gas in the oil and I have drained and replaced the oil and oil filter. It's still smoking. Any advice?
If oil got into the exhaust it will smoke for a while til the oil is cooked out of it, now if you mean a lot of smoke and it smells like it's burning oil then could be a cracked piston or some other things.... a lot of these small engines get gas in the oil all the time and get run that way because people don't shut the fuel supply off when transporting them or even just storing them. Do you think the gas in oil was from putting it on it's side? or was it just thinned out oil that smelled like gas??
It was definitely not thin. I have been using it this morning and it has not been smoking really heavy. It sounds ok too. Thanks again.