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

Hi, first post, long time lurker. I have a 221QE 2 stroke Toro snowblower. I recently summerized it and installed a fuel shutoff inline. I ran the engine out of fuel and then took the float bowl drain bolt out to let the remaining gas drain (only a few drops came out). I then tipped the machine up on its auger and used my fogging oil spray with the red tube to burst some oil into the float bowl. I then put the drain both back in and lowered the snowblower down and pulled the rope. The motor gave one last VROOMMM, then died. I figure this would have sucked up some fogging oil into the jet. Will this be ok until next winter? I don't want the jets getting clogged from dried gas residue, which is why I sprayed the fogging oil in. Hope this is ok...

I would not spray fogging oil in the float bowl. At this point if you still have gas in the tank I would run some start the engine and let it run for a bit then I would spray the fogging oil into the carb air intake and let the engine die.  At that point i would pull the starter rope until you are near tdc on compression stroke so both the intake and exhaust valve are closed.   Drain the fuel from the tank if that is how you store it, if not close the petcock and then just remove the bowl bolt and let the fuel empty out and put it a way.   I like to grease the zerks if you have them on the auger at this time and change the oil.

I went ahead and turned the gasoline back on and started it for awhile to run the oil out of the float bowl. Then shut off petcock, let it die, drained remaining gas from bowl via the drain bolt. Pulled starter rope to bring the piston to TDC. All done. It is a 2 cycle by the way, so no intake/exhaust valves -or oil to change!

Yes, I agree to what the other posters advise, it's like an outboard motor 2 stroke, just spray the fogging oil into the air intake as the engine is running(protects the crank and crank bearings), you should see a lot more blue exhaust as the oil runs into the engine, the shut off the engine, the remove plug and spray more fogging oil to lube the iron cylinder bore and iron piston rings.set piston at TDC and reinstall plug.

For these snowthrowers, I also install a piece of air filter foam into the exhaust outlet to keep out bugs and dirt, and another piece of foam into the carb air inlet cup, and cover the whole carb with some saran wrap to keep the summer dust and bugs off the carb.