On Fri, 9 Jan 2009 11:33:04 -0500, "Sharp Dressed Man"
wrote:

wrote in message
...
On Jan 7, 11:43 pm, wrote:
I have a Craftsman Snow Thrower (247.88190) and I have an unfortunate
problem. My son put replaced the oil with oil for my leaf blower. He
put four 3.2 ounce bottles of Craftsman Professional Synthetic Blend 2-
Cycle Engine Oil w/ fuel stabilizer (#71-36560) instead of the correct
4-cycle oil I normally use. Luckily he didn't mix it with gas and he
didn't start it up (as he couldn't figure out why it wouldn't show up
on the dip stick!). So at present I've got the blower propped up a bit
and I'm draining that oil out. I'm going to let it drain all night.
But are there any other precautions I should take before filling it up
with the correct oil? The amount he added (12-13 oz) just barely
showed up on the dip stick. Any advice would be much appreciated as I
really like this blower and want to nurse it back to machine health as
smoothly as possible. Thanks in advance.

It always amazes me how people think these are living breathing
animals and that somehow simply touching it with a "wrong" substance
will cause it to get "sick" like an allergic reaction or something.

Your snowblower is an inanimate object. It has no idea your son put
the "wrong oil" in it, especially since you didn't even start the
engine afterwards. It's not "sick." It's not "hurt." The 2-stroke oil
was simply STORED in the engine for a short period of time.

Even if you had started it you wouldn't have caused any damage. 2-
cycle oil is still OIL. It's still wet and slippery. It still
lubricates, probably better than normal motor oil. The only reason you
don't want to use it is because it costs about the same per 3oz bottle
as a quart of regular motor oil.

You can even re-use the 2-stroke oil for its intended purpose. Just
put it in a well-marked container so your son doesn't use it by
mistake again.

Concur. Only thing I'd add to the above is after refilling with correct oil,
start her up and let it run for maybe 5 minutes till it's warm. Then drain
and discard the barely used oil (to flush out any residue)-- and refill with
fresh correct oil.

You're only out the cost of one quart and no harm to the engine. Also, sit
the young lad down, thank him for doing the maintenance but 'splain to him
about oil.


Draining and refilling now is totally un-necessary. He was using high
end 2 stroke oil - which unless it was pre-diluted (some is - most
today is not) it would have been just fine in the crankcase. Expensive
- so I HOPE he didn't throw it out - still perfectly good to use in
the 2 stroke.
Straight grade SAE30 non detergent was the RECOMMENDED oil in a lot of
older 2 stroke engines.