Thanks for your the tip on the coolant level, l that's what was causing the icing up. it is still getting antifreeze in the oil. it's only run for an hour since December and it's already showing on the dip stick, and the wet exhaust isn't going away. I'll test the compression again but I think the problem is the sleeve seals. my question is. is it possible to do the sleeve seals with the engine still in the machine? or do I have to pull it out? I'm sort of stuck with this machine for now so I'll fix it but I don't want it to take forever. will a better engine fit this? If I have to take it out maybe I can swap it for something better?

150psi per cylinder is a good sign there is no problem in the headgasket between the coolant journals and cylinder chambers.
If it holds compression then i doubt it has a blown gasket.

Now on the other hand the icing up vaporizer/regulator usually means the coolant is either low or not going through it and you should investigate that part of the cooling system that goes through it. It is either clogged up or some internal problem not allowing coolant to flow through it. There may be a slim chance that coolant may be leaking through the diaphragm and getting into the fuel system which is why you smelled antifreeze coming out of the exhaust. You can try to rebuild it but the best bet is to just replace it with a new one and eliminate the risk of reassembling it incorrectly and having to redo it.

As for the excess amount of condensation coming from the exhaust? i've seen this many times and yes it has something to do with the temperature of the muffler/catalyst and exhaust exiting the system, it will generate moisture until it gets warm enough to evaporate it and normalize the environment inside the exhaust.

Icing up is usually a sign of low coolant, bad regulator or both.

Thanks for the replies.

The machine has only had about 3 or 4 hours running time since we got it used from a big a dealer. we only use it once a month but its left to warm up once or twice a week.

I pulled the plugs out after fettling a socket to fit the tubes. I don't have a pressure tester for the coolant but I did put a compression tester on each cylinder. they all 4 pumped up to 150 and held for a minute or more. I don't know there is any antifreeze in the exhaust, plugs 1 and 4 were brand new but didn't look steam cleaned. I think there might have been a lot of water in the exhaust and the counterbalance is cold when the hot exhaust hits that it really sweats a lot of water. I put some rad sealer in it and ran it until hot and it all seemed to dry out back there so it might be ok for a time. I think I ran it out of propane as it wouldn't start this morning so I'll get a refill and report back as it's going to get a lot of use this week.


Started up. about a cup full of clean water condensation around the exhaust while it's still cold but dries right up. did I dodge a bullet here?

The propane stuff under the hood. looks like a regulator and maybe a solenoid valve.. gets frosty while it's running. is this normal ? it was hard to start with the new propane bottle and once it was very hot and tried to restart, it wasn't running great, had to baby it to keep it going. it got better when I turned the propane off and let it run out and after it was cool it was normal.

coolant in the oil and the smell of antifreeze in the exhaust is definatly a sign of a blown head gasket or something even worse

yep brewski is correct, using a cooling system pressure tester will tell the tale quickly. I used one religiously to find leaks etc on problems like this. It's the quickest way imo as well.
Also if you decide to pull the head be prepared for an ordeal reinstalling it, the torquing process is time consuming having to torque, run engine de-torque , let cool, re-torque and... it's really annoying but the proceedure is imperative to do as they say or it will fail if you don't. The wonderful part of dealing with aluminum heads and cylinder sleaves.

Once you determine what the problem is your decision from there is going to be wether to fix it or just replace it with a reman engine. If you don't want the hassle of the process of the repair the reman engine might be your quickest and best way to go.

Those engines were a pile of crap, they loved to blow head gaskets, they are also wet liners so could be liner sealing ring gone.

Do you have a cooling system pressure tester? You can pressurize the radiator and see if it leaks down. A lot faster than watching how fast the level drops while running.