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

Most Common Damage Done to any and all snowblowers is NOT preparing the engine and machine for the summer months.  The most necessary part of this is to prevent the unused engines one engine piston rings from rusting themself to the cylinder wall.  The solution is simple and easy if you posess the tools and the technical know how to change a spark plug.    Go to a local drugstore and buy a plastic syringe, tell them you need it to feed liquid medicine to a sick cat.  Then go home and remove the spark plug from the engine on your snowblower.  Fill the syringe with ordinary clean fresh motor oil, and empty it into the engine cylinder, then pull the starter cord a few times to distribute the oil on the cylinder walls and the piston rings, then  replace the spark plug.  Now Pull the cord slowly until it provides the maximum resistance, and then stop pulling.  This will effectively have closed all the engine valves and will keep the warm moist air of summer from getting into the engine cylinder.  This must be done every year once the threat of snow is gone.  April Fool's Day is a good day to remember if you've done such chores.

The other things are less important since they will not be so damaging, but drain all the gas out of the tank, the carburetor, and the lines.  Cover the machine with a plastic cover that allows air movement, like a piece of woven plastic or most housewraps, so long as yoy store the snowblower in a garage and out of the sun.  

Remember that snowblowers have no air filters so it is common for moisture-water to be injested during a snow storm.  For this reason I put the machine in the garage and run it until the gas runs out once I have shut off the fuel line.  My old snowblower required that I install an In-Line fuel shut-off valve because the $ 1100.00 bucks I paid wasn't sufficient for MTD to have included one when they built my Sears Craftsman Snowblower.  So if your engine has no fuel shut off, you too should install one yourself.    Oh, and always use gas that has sufficient fuel stabilizer in it, and always use fuel that is less thyan six months in the can even if it does have stabilizer in it.  Thenattempting to start the snowblower when you awake to the blizzard won't throw you into a state of panic.

I have never done an fogging or adding oil to the cylinder on an OPE engine prior to long term storage.  Never had any rust issues.  Just stored the engine by slowly pull the starter until the valves are closed. 

Most of my OPE engine problems are carb, fuel line, fuel filter related issues.  Dirty fuel, fuel left in carburetor too long, etc...

The dreaded "failure to oil the cylinder" and another all time favourite "water condensation in the oil scourge"   are two of the most over used dire engine warning threats that the ignorant and those with OCD constantly flog. 

It's tiresome to read about these "imminent engine destroyers" over and over when in reality, the possibility from either is negligible.   What annoys me most is that the people who post such warnings obviously have little or no mechanical experience.  If they did, they wouldn't be issuing such nonsense. 

By the way, RedOct is correct.  There are a lot of engines out there with cast iron cylinders.  Some in snow blower applications and many in other OPE.  Many B&S Snow engines are Kool Bore with aluminum bore but there are also some B&S Snow engines that have cast bores.  Pretty much all of the Chinese engines have cast bores as well.

In making this statement I was only meaning it to refer to snowblowers engines.   "Secondly, unless your engine has a cast iron bore (Honda's are, but most are not )"
I believe that only some of 8hp and larger engines have cast iron sleeves (could be wrong about that).  And I think that the majority of 4 stroke snowblowers currently in use have smaller engines than that.  Probably 5hp. and some 7s.
On the subject of water in cylinders.
I just yesterday pulled apart a 11hp Honda that had the air cleaner left off.  Water got into the cyl. and sat for a while.  Had to beat the piston out by going in through the hole in the case for the low oil alert sensor.  Run a stainless steel rod through the hole.  Position it on the bottom of the rod cap and hit it with a hammer.  Not how it's usually done, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.
Had to take the rings out in pieces with a fabricated tool they were absolutely glue into the grooves.

Yeah.  That's completely understandable. 

Leaving an access for direct water entry into the engine will always result in problems unless it's caught very quickly.  However, If that engine had sat for twenty years covered with no chance of water getting into it, you would not have had that problem.  

I've fished a couple outboards from the water immediately after total submersion.  I remember an old 1959 12 h.p. Viking a guy had mounted on a makeshift motor mount on a pontoon boat he was building.  He only put in two bottom bolts to hold a piece of 2x10 lumber as a motor mount onto the back of the pontoon boat.  We fired up the motor and started to head onto the lake.  Fortunately, we were in shallow water.  The guy cranked the throttle, the engine snapped the piece of lumber in half and toppled into the drink running at full throttle.   It's funny how the mind works under situations like that.  As the engine was going into the lake, the fuel line was dragging the fuel tank with it.  For some reason, I grabbed the fuel can thinking it might save the engine.  Not.  I did keep the fuel tank from going in the water though.  We were still in shallow water an managed to pole back to the engine and fish it out of the lake.  We immediately pulled the plugs, laid it on the ground and pulled it until we cleared the water out of it.  Then we put it on a saw horse, heated the plugs with a torch, put them in, hooked up the fuel, pulled a few times and it fire right up.  Amazing considering that it had point/condenser ignition.  I was surprised that the engine didn't bend a connecting rod when it sucked in the water! 

That engine is still running to this day, 50 years old!

borat wrote: I am quite surprised that it did not brake or bend a rod if it was running at full throttle when it went into the drink.

carlb wrote:
Same here. 

I use to own that engine and sold it to the guy who put it on his pontoon boat. 

Strange thing is that very engine had once bent a connecting rod on me coming home just before dark after an evening of walleye fishing about 30 years ago.  

My luck, I was at the far end of a lake three miles from camp, it was getting dark and as usual, there was nobody else out there but me.  The engine calfed on me about two miles from camp.  The good news was that it was fairly calm, I had a good set of oars, was at the age where I could have rowed for hours and still had a couple cool brews with me.  It was pitch black by the time I got to the camp and the folks were just getting their boats ready for a search party.   Needless to say they were very happy to see my boat pull up to the dock.  Not happy to see me so much.  More like joy from not having to search a fairly big lake in the dead of night.   

I put a new connecting rod and piston in that engine and it's been running great ever since.    

OT...New Yorker. Mind posting some pics of the unit with the light mods, side skids, etc.....

Actually the engine is aluminum with a steel cylinder liner and not as jrtrebor wrote:

mobiledynamics wrote:
I am about to go out and take it out of summer storage, and clean it, then I'll take a few photo's and see how to post them.