Yea, I know, shame on me.
How do I clean the oil compartment if the oil is all burnt?
Here's what happened:
My mower started smoking and it occurred to me that I haven't changed the oil in a year. Checked the dipstick and sure enough it was pretty low.
I'll be making a trip to get some oil, but how do I get the old stuff out there? I'm not asking how to do an oil change, but rather should I try to clean the old stuff out there first? this is assuming there's not much oil left to siphon/pour out.
I can only think of two ways:
- just pour the new one in and pray that it will keep on running till the manufacturer recommended oil change
- pour new oil in and give it a small run (half an hour of mowing), hope the old oil gets diluted in the mean time and then do a real oil change?
Best Answer
I doubt that your real problem is burnt oil sitting in the engine - the most likely way for oil to be burnt and causing smoke in the exhaust is if the rings are bad and/or the cylinder is scored (possibly because of running too long without enough oil).
You can get a good sense of whether your engine is burning oil by checking the spark plug and looking for deposits or other fouling.
If you're really worried about the oil (i.e. if it's extremely dirty or diluted), change the oil (don't just top it off), then run the engine long enough to warm it up, then change it again.
If the engine doesn't run well with new oil, an engine overhaul is probably your best bet (and usually not that hard to do with a single cylinder small engine if you can find an overhaul kit for it). If the cylinder is scored you might be able to have it bored if you can find an oversize piston and/or rings.