My helper, who has evidently never used a four-cycle engine, put the gas/oil mixture in my lawnmower, which uses gas and oil separately. Understandably, the engine quit while he was mowing the lawn.
I drained out the gas/oil and filled up with gas. It will sort of start, but will not run. Engine is a 5hp Briggs & Stratton.
Does anybody have any experience with this? I suspect it may be a carburetor rebuild, but I know very little about engines.
Yep. Fouled the spark plug with oil, most likely.
Pull the spark plug and clean it off, or just replace it (they're cheap), and I bet it starts easily and runs.
The carburetor is probably ok. Once you get it started, and run a tank or two of gas through it, the carb should be about as clean as it ever was.
you may have a differet problem but change the plug in case it became fouled, drain the gas and put in fresh fuel it should run if not you have more problems.
Understandably,
Toy, the gas/oil mixture should not have caused your problem. If you use just plain gas in a two stroke engine then you will have problems starting the thing. I have a chain saw with a two stroke and a lawn mower that is four stroke. When I buy my gas I mix it with the oil and it turns green. I then use the mixture in both the lawn mower and the chain saw. Been doing it like this for several years, no porblems.
What you might have is either water or dirt in carb....simple to take it apart and clean out. Don't mess up the gasket and keep track of all the small parts.
Refill with gas and you should be good to go. Muff
I drained out the gas/oil and filled up with gas. It will sort of start, but will not run. Engine is a 5hp Briggs & Stratton.
Does anybody have any experience with this? I suspect it may be a carburetor rebuild, but I know very little about engines.
There isn't enought oil in gas/oil mix to bother 4 stroke engine, might smoke a little, foul plug that quickly, very doubtful.
Walt Conner
"> My helper, who has evidently never used a four-cycle engine, put the gas/oil
Understandably,
Like the above reply I have been running gas /oil mix in my 4 cycle lawnmowers and snowblowers for years and never had one problem. I'd say you have something else going on there. But The first thing to try is a new plug as the old one may have fouled if you had a too rich oil mixture. In any event it is something minor not major that is the problem.
was thinking of this the other day: drain all the gas out and put in new gas, change out the spark plug, it probably is covered in oil.... then shake the mover back and forth and pour out the new gas.. this will dilutre the other oil that is stuck to the tank and other parts... then if you have a primer??? push the primer a bunch of times and this will wash out the oil/gas mixture out of the tubing going to the carb. and the carb..... the engine at this time will be flooded and probably will not start from all the priming.. remove the air filter and blow some air into the air filter area to evaporate the flooded gas..... then try to start it up.. should start now.. if not then try again...
check plug and clean and checkgap clean air filter when the mower begins to quit unburned fuel backs up into air filter
Icarii
Understandably,
It amazes me that while the EPA is looking hard at lawn/garden equipment as a remaining significant source of air pollution and trying to cut it down, there are people dumb enough to deliberately put two cycle fuel in a four cycle engine. Your little 4 cycle lawn mower with oil in the gas because you're too lazy to have two gas cans is generating more air pollution than dozens of cars. Maybe you should put it in your cars too.
Phooey.
Walt Conner
It amazes the f*ck out of me too. Doesn't the government have anything better to do, like what is mandated in the US Constitution? Show me the words EPA in that document.
I agree with him putting 2 cycle gas does increase air pollution and small engines are the worst offenders. I only do it to use up my two cycle gas as I don't use that much and it goes stale then I would have to dump it down a storm drain and that wouldn't be good either! :)
Thank you one and all. I took everyone's repair suggestions and did them all and my mower works!
Have inadvertently used oil/gas mix intended for the chain saw, in our 4 stroke Briggs/Stratton. No problems at all. I was surprised also that the posters engine would have 'stopped' running due to the use of 2 cycle fuel! Have seen somone put kerosene in one of those. Since the engine was warm it started up and ran fine for the remaining thirty minutes to finish a job before dark! I don't think it would have started cold though; BTW according to one B&S book I've seen there is (or was) a kerosene version (not diesel) of some of those those engines and also, apparently, one that ran in the opposite direction (i.e. backwards). Don't have the details in front of me but I assume they would have been versions of the horizontal shaft models; not the vertical shaft commonly used for lawnmowers? AFIK two stroke engines (including outboards?) are still sold in North America. The only advantage I believe is lighter weight for a certain power output? Versus increased pollution; viz medical effects, corrosion, air quality, damage to vegetation and structures etc. etc.
Most of us are quite happy with most of what the EPA has done to clean up and protect our water and air. If you prefer to live in a world like Love Canal, I'm sure there are still places like that which you can find.
So your assertion is that, as long as enough people are happy about it, it doesn't matter whether it's constitutional?
--Goedjn
No, my assertion is that your an imbecile for thinking that because the EPA isn't mentioned in the Constitution that the agency is illegal or doesn't have the power to enforce environmental laws. Virtually all of the govt agencies from the EPA down to your local zoning board are not mentioned in the Constitution.
The extra oil in the lawn mower might easily have fouled the plug. Or maybe it's last year's gas, and has gone flat.
Straight gas in a twostroke oughta fire right up and run for a couple minutes -- until the piston siezes. The oil lubricates the crankshaft berrings.
Perhaps you'd care to cite the portion of the Constitution which authorizes Congress to pass laws regulating environmental pollution. Or the portion which authorizes Congress to delegate its legislative authority to the executive branch (which is what happens when agencies such as the EPA issue regulations which have the force of law).
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