Changing out Flange/Sump gasket on Tecumseh 6.5 model 143.976500

Hello everyone,
I am helping my dad fix lawn/garden equipment. Anyway, I have a Sears Craftsman, Eager 1, 6.5 horse, model 143.976500 that has a oil leak when running and causing smoke. Anyway, I did some looking and it looks like the flange or sump gasket is leaking at the seam where the upper block sits on top the flange. So what I did is angled the push mower to one side with two wheels in the air and the other two on the ground and saw in two places where oil was seeping out of the seam. So I went ahead and ordered a flange/sump gasket since what I have read on-line these gaskets commonly leak on a Tecumseh small engine. My question is how hard is it to take of the flange to replace the sump/flange gasket?

Re: Changing out Flange/Sump gasket on Tecumseh 6.5 model 143.976500

Drain the oil and the gas.Pull off the spark plug lead and then remove the blade.Remove the motor from the mower and and work on it with the crank shaft up.Use sand paper on the crank to remove rust and debris so you don't ruin the seal in the sump when pulling it off the engine.Working with the shaft up will keep the governor and cam shaft from dropping out of the engine.Here is a link to the service manual for the Tecumseh Vector engine.Hope this helps.
http--www.barrettsmallengine.com-manual-tecumsehvlvmanual.pdf

Re: Changing out Flange/Sump gasket on Tecumseh 6.5 model 143.976500

Windy5859, Basically what you are saying is turn the motor upside down so the shaft that the cutting blade mounts to is up in the air when working on the motor?

Re: Changing out Flange/Sump gasket on Tecumseh 6.5 model 143.976500

Yes,the crank shaft is up with engine sitting on the recoil assembly.I did one a few years ago like this.

Re: Changing out Flange/Sump gasket on Tecumseh 6.5 model 143.976500

Cool!!! I think I am straight on swapping out the flange/sump gasket on this push mower. Thank you and will reply back sometime next week if I was successfully able to do this job or not. I also heard about the sump pump maybe falling out of place is that a problem if it does and is it pretty easy to see where that goes if that does happen? The flange/sump gasket should be here no later than next Wednesday so I will be tackling this job as well as the Mantis Tiller carb issue. Wish me luck on both these jobs.

Re: Changing out Flange/Sump gasket on Tecumseh 6.5 model 143.976500

//////UPDATE////
After all of these months sitting in my garage I actually had the time to replace the flange/sump gasket on this mower. Got it accomplished today and it was actually a piece of cake getting it done. Only problem, if you want to call it a problem, was getting the blade adapter off the lower shaft were the blade goes. I had to borrow my dads pulley removal tool and that did the trick in getting the stubborn adapter off. The rest of the job went easy and smooth. Put it all back together and she smoked pretty good at first. I think the remaining oil ran up into the upper part of the motor and that was what was burning off. After running it a while the smoke cleared up and no more leaking oil around the seam. I think this mower will last a good while now.