Outdoor Power Equipment (Lawn Mowers, Snow Blowers, Chain Saws and more) Discussions

I found this information which i thought was most interesting.Normal oil consumption for a air cooled small engine can be up to 1 oz per cylinder per hour.This would be under full throttle conditions.So if you use your old Briggs or Tecumseh snow blower for a few hours and you use 1 oz or 2 it is most likely normal oil consumption !

I had two 10 h.p. Tecumseh L head engines for a total of 20 years.  Neither engine used any oil over an entire season.  I regularly checked oil on them an never had to top them off.  My new 9.5 h.p. B&S Kool Bore (aluminum bore) engine used approx. 1 oz. of synthetic Mobil 1 5W30 oil for every hour of hard work.  I have since switched over to Castrol 5W30 High Mileage conventional oil to see if there will be a reduction in consumption.  Initial results seem encouraging but I need a serious dump of heavy snow to work the engine real hard for a couple of hours to confirm one way or the other.

Given how well the engine starts, runs and the power it makes, I can live with a bit of oil consumption. 

 

My MTD, 14 years old now, Tecumseh HMSH80, never seemed to use any oil. Changes it once a season, and checked it regularly.

I never did a comparision from end to beginning, if it did use any oil throughout the season, it was marginal.

Now my Yamaha generator does use some oil. Last Summer, when on Vacation, running up to 12 hours per day, heavy load, after about 50 hours run time it would use approx 100ml of oil. I was able to guess this based on 600ml in, and 500 ml out, I changed it every 50 hours in the summer. So that is about 2ml/hour, pretty good, for the work load it was under, and the summer temperatures. In the Fall, it used less, when I stored it, I got pretty close to 600ml out, after about 30 hours use, mind you the temperatures were cooler, and no A/C used on Trailer, so less load during operation.

I am sure the fact that snow blowers operate in cold temperatures help reduce oil consumption.

I have 3 Tecumseh powered Ariens machines.The most recent is a (trouts2) rebuild ST824.During our recent snow storm in mass the ST824 worked hard for 3 hours and used a tad less than 1.5 oz of mobil one.The old 1968 ariens 6HP uses about close to the same as what the ST824 8HP engine does.I also have a 7HP which is a very newish engine and a L head.This engine would use slightly less mobil 1 than either the 6 or 8HP engines.Do to performance and throwing distance i do assume both the 6 and 8HP are in very good mechanical condition.Oil use should be less with a synthetic oil. Or at least the manufacturer states this.What I can say is i have never measured oil consumption using conventional oil.Your late model Briggs engine should also have better oil control (ring seal) than the older engines.But at any rate let us know how your test goes with the conventional oil.To me the benefit of the synthetic oil would out way oil use anyway as it handles cold and high temps much better than conventional oil does.Oil temps can get very high when a snow blower is working at max load for extended periods

The Craftsman with a Tecumseh 9hp that I used to use/borrow constantly needed to be topped off. But my new Toro 826OXE I would say I used it about 6 hard hours and about 2 lite did not burn a drop. Kinda surprised being how hard I pushed that motor. :)

relics wrote:

I am not sure about your experiences, but for me, high oil temperatures on a snow blower are not an issue. With the sub zero temperature air constantly cooling the engine, the only thing that gets hot, is the exhaust manifold and muffler. I can run full throttle for 3 hours and still hold a bare hand on the motor. The oil usage you are describing may be caused by the fact you are using synthetic oil. My expert friend has described similar results to what yourself and Borat are experiencing. Because of the extra lubrication with the synthetic oil, it can prevent proper seating and wearing in of the moving parts on a small engine, thus the extra usage and possible fouled plugs that have been described. You may want to try running conventional oil for a cycle, then switching back! There are various opinions on this, and synthetic certainly will reduce wear, however, there are times when a little wear are actually welcome! Since synthetic oil is harder to burn off, the fouling of plugs is a definite possibility, and can decrease performance!

Seems most manufactures if not all seem to be recomending synthetic oil for snow blowers.Briggs states for there motors 1 0z per cylinder per hour under full throttle is exceptable oil use.I would think they would have done a fair amount of testing with regular and synthetic  oil before comeing up with that oil use spec. As long as the oil use is at or in my case less than the 1 oz per hour i am comfortable with it.Really the only reason I posted this thread was to inform people that may be searching on the net what can be normal oil use in there snow blower.Also to note in my case the 3 Tecumseh engines i have would have been well broken in before going to  a synthetic oil.

relics wrote:

Honda simply recommends: "Use a 4-stroke automotive detergent oil

[...]

Honda recommends that you use API SERVICE category SJ or later (or equivalent) oil"

I suspect most of the discussion of synthetic advantages revolve around the theoretical advantages of synthetic especially in OPE. I don't believe OPE engines are in any sort of high-stress environment (although I'm sure people can come up with exceptions) and in fact, I'll bet if you left most snowblower oil in the crankcase for 3-4 years at a time, it wouldn't make a lick of difference for snowblower longevity compared to more obvious forms of abuse like "leaving the snowblower outside year round under a cover" or "leaving gas in the snowblower and not starting it for 2-3 years".

There are a couple of guys here who rebuild snowblowers (like trout and borat). I wonder if engine wear is the reason most snowblowers are abandoned? Or is it "won't start" or "belts are broken" or "rusted to h*ll"?

That's not to say this isn't an interesting or useful discussion, but I think we need to keep it in perspective of what these engines are and how they're used.

FWIW - I had my HS624WA for 10 years and it never consumed any oil. I always check my oil before every start-up - just a habit I have with all of my OPE. I switched over to synthetic at about my 7 year mark and again, never had to add any oil. I always change my oil once/year regardless of how hard a winter we have although there have been 1 or 2 times that I changed twice because of extraordinary useage. I'm running conventional 5w-30 in my new to me HS928TA and honestly see no need to switch over to synthetic even after I log the 50 or so hours most seem to suggest is the required "break-in" period. I store my machine in an unheated garage and never have any hard starts as it usually never even gets below freezing in there (garage is located underneath my house).

I don't rebuild snow blowers as Trouts does.  I will fix one for a relative or friend but I'm not in the business of recycling snow blowers. 

However, from my experience, I've yet to see a scrapped snow blower with a blown engine.   I've seen some very old (30+) machines with tired engines yet they kept doing their job while other components of the machine failed.   We put far too much emphasis on engine oil selection when it's not really necessary.  Any decent conventional oil of the proper viscosity changed one a year will keep the engine running well beyond the life of most machines they're mounted on.