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

OK, my snowblower has a Tecumseh engine, so when I read this I thought it could be either BS, correct, or old news.

You can't go wrong with a Briggs and Stratton engine. Tecumseh engines are prone to throwing piston rods through the crankcase wall if the oil level drops at all. The Tecumseh speed control is not nearly as robust as the Briggs and Stratton either. Briggs & Stratton is now back in the snow blower engine business in a big way with overhead valve engines ranging from 6.5 through 13 horsepower. Given prices, contracts and market inertia it's anybody's guess how quickly they will regain market share. However if you shop around machines can be found with these engines.

Anyone with any knowledge care to comment?  Here's the link.
http://home.gwi.net/~spectrum/snowbuying.html


--SnowRemover

     The moral of the story.............

You can lead a Yak to water,

but you can't teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in the poke.

                                                                                                                                                      18 degrees

Emmo wrote:

      
      

            Only if she has all of her teeth !!!!!!!!!!!


                   Tom  

Run ANY OPE low or out of oil, regardless of the engine brand on it, and you're looking for an engine failure to occur.

Tecumseh's do have a tendency to be LESS TOLERANT to low oil conditions but they will last if you care for them.

This is a classic case of laziness/ignorance meets accountability or "saving of face". "It ain't my fault the darned thing crapped out on me - them Tekumsens are just plain JUNK!!"

Don't blame yourself, blame someone else (or blame the engine in this case).

Marty

Majorxlr8n wrote:
While I agree with the basic statement that you have to intelligently maintain you engines. There is a point of sensitivity to a problem where it is a design problem as well. I don't think the Tecumseh engines have passed that point, their requirements seem to be reasonbale. At the same time it is fair to say  that one engine design is more prone to a problem than another if it is true. I thought the origninal poster was asking for opinions on whether the staement was true.

Here's an example of what I mean:

Lets say that brand X engine only starts having problems if they are low on oil by more than 1 Litre ( close to 1 Qt ). while brand Y blows up if it is down by  30ml ( 1 oz). All other things being equal which would you like to own? Which do you think is a better design? Which is less prone to user error? which is less sensitive to a "low oil" condition?

Gee I didn't even know I was at the root of this thread!
 
I stand by my observations especially in regard to vintage engines. I had never seen a thrown rod in 6 years of working on OPE until Gilson started using some 10HP Tecumsehs and we had several fail out of a small population that same season. Those engines were very tolerant off slightly low oil conditions, this has surfaced over and over again including on the WTB board last season. If you remember Kaboom said it all, I get the same message in my email. There's no urban legend about it, it is fact. Why is this so? My two thoeries and they are only theories are that first the oil reserve is less on these engines and I suspect the lubrication system is also less effective. The other thiing we saw over and over was that the old governor linkages on the Tecumsehs were crap and had a multitude of hang-ups and failure modes including runaway RPMs.

So that's my opinion based on my own hard experience. Are todays Tecumsehs bad engines? I'm not sure, I do still hear of the low oil failures, and I don't mean running the engine dry by any means. How bad can they be? Probably not that bad after all they are still around and you see them running all the time. Fact is when you hear thrown rod you almost always hear Tecumseh in the same sentence. In other words I don't want to hear about the one you have been running for 30 years, nobody said they all blow, just more than others, it is a relative thing.

The section of my page quoted at the beginning of this page was written several years ago and is due for some updating but the message will not change. B&S is making a slow comeback. The challenge for them is overcoming Tecumseh's strong offering in 2 stroke power. After B&Ss lackluster attempt at a 2 stroke engine Tecumseh used their 2 strokes as leverage to gain 4 stroke market share. It was a shrewd business move and came right when the  compact 2 stroke machines were coming into their own, manufacturers needed 2 stoke units and Tecumeh had them.

Pete.

Add me to the list of blown Tecumseh ( thrown rod ) engines.

I've got it chalked up to probable operator error ( me). I had some problem, sent it to a local dealer. they fixed it but said there was no oil in it when it came in. Next time I used it it locked up on me. Sent it back without doing an inspection ( silly me). They come back and say the engine is blown, do I want a short block? I say no and start researching ( mostly WTB - thank you everybody :-) ).  Got the engine back and there's this big hole in the side. I've put an 11HP B&S Intek Snow  on the blower and so far have been really happy. I also check the oil every time I start up which is what i should have been doing in the first place.

Note - There was a dead spot in the grass that was under the snow where I had the blower parked so my guess is that I had a slow leak that went unnoticed. I had changed the oil in the fall and checked the level for the first several startups and then got lazy.

Final Note: Yes it was fun putting the new engine on.

The "dipper "on the connecting rod which splashes the oil around is as big as your finger nail and does not go to the bottom of the sump." down only a little oil" famous last words as you tilt back your blower to back up . opps now i have a large hole undre my starter .

millwright

Hi Nibbler,

Was it difficult trying to re-power your machine.  I don't recall if you mentioned whether your snowblower originally had an 11 HP engine on it.  If not, were there any modification to the snowblower or the drive & auger pulleys that you needed to make?  This is a great subject, I wish more members that have repowered were to post their experiences.  I'm sure many would benefit from it. 

Could it be possible Tecumseh's use oil faster, thus catching more people with low oil, thus more kabooms?