Lawn mower torture test

I was changing the oil in my lawn mower today, and a thought crossed my mind. how long would a lawn mower last if you filled the crankcase back up with 2 cycle oil instead of regular oil? i've always used Pennzoil SAE 30 for many years in all my lawn mowers, and i just wondered, how long would a lawn mower last if instead of 4 cycle oil, what would happen if instead you filled it up with 2 cycle oil (the oil that goes into gas for weedeaters and chainsaws)

true, it's thinner that regular oil, but i'd say it's better than nothing at all.


or in this case, what if you drained all the oil out of the crankcase to where it's bone dry, and then put 2 cycle/gas mix gas in the tank and ran it like that?

again, i have no intention to do this, i was just curious.

I was a landscaper for quite a few years. My thoughts...

If you put two-cycle oil (just the oil, not the gas mix) where the oil goes, the mower will run for a few hours. Maybe. John Deere and Toro seem to do better than the store brands at handling "accidentals" like this. Once the mower dies and won't turn back on, you'll be taking it apart, cleaning it out, and reassembling. No fun.

If you use two-cycle / gas mix instead, well, you might start a fire. It could very well explode. A short story: as a landscaper, I often had to dispose of used-up tools. In some cases, this was a lawn mower. Instead of just throwing it away, we would do experiments like you're mentioning. It is very possible to make a lawn mower explode, in the most literal sense.

A person I met through youtube has a lawnmower (Craftsman Eager 1/Tecumseh engine) with canola oil in the crankcase in place of motor oil. So far, the engine was still running as of last year despite all the use/abuse he's put it through although the mower has long fallen apart (the deck was already badly rusted when he found it)

My first question to him was "Does the exhaust smells like French Fries ?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RshpnagIT7Y

Lawnmower engines don't have to deal with very much stress. The overwhelming majority of the work they do is just churning the air under the cutting deck, which is why a little extra drag from a clogged expeller chute is enough to stall them. 1-2 horsepower isn't going to test the integrity of lubrication film composed of oil designed for engines with hundreds of horsepower.

The advantages of two-cycle oil are that it can burn ash-free, and it can provide sufficient lubrication with only a thin film of oil. If an engine had a reservoir of two-cycle oil to continuously lubricate itself with, it should get more than enough lubrication to continue running indefinitely.

yuandrew said:

A person I met through youtube has a lawnmower (Craftsman Eager 1/Tecumseh engine) with canola oil in the crankcase in place of motor oil. So far, the engine was still running as of last year despite all the use/abuse he's put it through although the mower has long fallen apart (the deck was already badly rusted when he found it)

My first question to him was "Does the exhaust smells like French Fries ?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RshpnagIT7Y

Click to expand...

I've always wanted to try fluorocarbon oil in an engine, but I'm afraid of breathing fluorine compounds from the exhaust. Silicone oil would be safer, but silicone doesn't stick to metal very well.

A real test is mowing in a rock garden but it's a darwins law kind of thing.