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 !

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.