mower white smoke

You sure it isn't from the oil-soaked air filter? My Honda engine'd lawnmower does that. No crankcase oil burned as the level never changes, but when I take off the air cleaner it stops belching smoke.

B~

The snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com entity posted thusly:

Did you put in some gas-oil mixture by mistake? Perhaps a jerry can meant for your snowmobile, chain saw, or outboard?

Are you saying the mower will only run periodically and when it does it is with a lot of smoke.

Or are you saying that sometimes when the mower runs it smokes, but not always.

Did you overfill it. Also has the mower been tipped on it's side with the carburetor on the down side.

Does the gas have two cycle oil in it.

Check the above.

White smoke? White? On an air-cooled engine?

Did you drain the gas also? This sounds like it could be bad gas more than anything else.

--scott

I did put in pure gas no mixture. I am to check the air filter and spark plug later this evening. I will also get some fresh gas to see if stale gas was the problem (idle for 6 months) The mower runs steadily but with a lot of white smoke on and off. I will double check if I put in too much oil - which I doubt as I did check the dip stick. Thanks a lot from your guys advice.

Daniel

John S. wrote:

Oil. Been there, done that. THICK white smoke that practically looks liquid. Mosquitoes hated it. :-)

Assuming its not over filled with oil (check that first) I'll bet you tipped the mower on its side to change the oil. I'll bet the oil breather filled with oil, and the breather is connected to the air inlet for emissions control.

Fire it up, let it run for a while, and I'll bet the smoke clears up in a few minutes..

white smoke, if it is truly white, is caused by *water* - so say the experts.

as long as the engine runs normally, I'd use it, chances are the source for the water will be eliminated through use.

The snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net entity posted thusly:

Don't think so. Water causes water vapour. It looks entirely different than smoke, though I guess there's an outside chance that someone could mistake it for smoke.

White smoke, or at least 'quite white' has poured out of my rear-tine cultivator when a friend filled the tank from a jerry can meant for my chain saw.

When diagnosing automobile exhaust smoke, technicians usually refer to the vapor from water condensation as white smoke. Oil burning produces a blue gray smoke that might be mistakenly called white smoke until you see the difference. Black smoke is due to excessively rich fuel mixture. Lawn mowers and other air cooled engines cannot produce the so called white smoke caused by water vapor because there is no coolant to leak into the combustion chamber and the muffler is too hot to allow water vapor condensation. Any "white" or blue gray smoke from the exhaust on an air cooled engine is from burning oil.

Maybe the mower's mini-computer is leaking water into the combustion chamber.

I'm sure that "expert" opinion comes as a big shock to the people who fly old airplanes with radial engines- which emit MASSIVE clouds of very white smoke on startup. Especially since they are AIR COOLED engines!

Examples:

White smoke can also be a result of heavy oil contamination, and that's always what causes it on air-cooled engine. It happens in those aircraft radials because about 1/3 of the cylinders are "upside down" and tend to fill with oil leaking past the rings after the engine is shut down. It happens in lawnmowers because they've either been over-filled or tipped so that the crankcase breather spits a big slug of oil into the carburetor.

The Kevin entity posted thusly:

All correct.

It was most definitely white, or at least whiter than what I would call blue grey, or even light blue grey, that was coming out of my cultivator. The cause was 30:1 gas-oil mixture in the tank.

Hi guys.

I got it fixed with a package from Sears with a new spark plug, oil , gas purifier+ air filter. Both the air filter and plug were found to be greasy. Likely I was tipping the mower last fall the wrong side resulting in oil stuck in the plug and the filter. My fault: I should have taken those apart before posting. Now I am spoilt with posting questions before doing the most obvious. Anyway I have changed everything and it started with just one pull with no smoke at all. Thanks for all your guys' info and valuable inputs\.

Daniel Toronto

Kevin, Most convincing argument and right on. Thanks. Daniel