Did I break something (winterization / trimmer)

16 years ago

I have an Echo trimmer, gt225 I believe is the model. I drained the fuel tank and ran it until dry, then added 7ml of 2 stroke oil to the cylinder, as per the instruction manual. It's getting warm again so I decided to pull it out today. I wasn't sure if I should try to drain that oil out of the cylinder or not - the manual doesn't mention this. I decided not to, and fired it up. It started up like normal, with a bit of smoking (no more than normal). I let it warm up and went about trimming stuff. I used new gas at 50:1.

Then I got to a place I needed to tip it on its side to "edge." After I finished that, I noticed a huge plume of bluish smoke coming from the exhaust. This lasted for about 30-40 seconds and then cleared up. A few minutes later I needed to tip it on its side again. Almost immediately it started putting out a huge cloud of smoke. I tipped it back to its normal orientation, but the smoke didn't clear up this time. I shut the trimmer off about a minute later, and it kept on smoking. I set it down on some concrete in case it caught fire (obviously something was on fire somewhere, and some of the exhaust system components were red hot), and after about 3 minutes it stopped smoking.

I figured some of the oil I added during the fall had suddenly found its way into the exhaust system and caught fire. I took the exhaust system apart to check if there were any huge deposits of carbon, but it was remarkably clean. The piston was spotless, as was the exhaust port. The spark screen was clean, as was the muffler. Only the exterior of the exhaust was dirty - it had a sticky oily residue on it, which I cleaned off. I'm thinking this is what caught fire and was smoking, but honestly I am not sure. The spark plug looked the same as before this little incident.

I fired the trimmer back up after cleaning the exhaust, and it seemed to run fine. I didn't run it for long since it was getting dark, but the smoke level was back to normal.

I'm wondering what I did wrong here, and if I've damaged anything. It's not even a year old, so I'd hate to have wrecked it.:(

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Comments (5)

canguy
16 years ago
You didn't hurt anything, that was the extra oil burning off. Some of it had collected in the muffler. Go ahead and use the machine normally.
yungman
16 years ago
Oil might have sip pass the piston into the crankcase. When ran in upright position, oil won't come up because it is not vaporized, but if you turn up side down to edge, oil got push into the combussion chamber by the presurized mixture in the crankcase into the cylinder and burn by the combussion. If you want to, try run the engine in the edging position of with the cylinder up side down and let it smoke away until all get burnt away.

I don't think there is anything to worry.
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zoulas
16 years ago
I agree, I doubt you did any harm, however, I personally would not do all that to store it for 4 months. Use Stabil with the best synthetic 2 cycle oil you can get and fill the tank at the end of the season. What you did is for long term storage (like years).
rcmoser
16 years ago
I also agree oil residue left in the crank case. I also agree on no harm done. If you don't want to see the smoke next time remove the crankcase cover and spark plug, spray out with carb. cleaner then pull the rope. The carb. cleaner will wash out any oil in the cylinder and crank case and the excess will be blown out the spark plug hole, roll it over so any liquid can run out the crankcase. install the crank case cover and it should fire on the first or second pull being it's been primed with the carb. cleaner.

Some will spout you will wash all the oil off the bearings and cylinder walls. do it all the time and have done it for 40 some odd ever sence I couldn't get my first tiller running (by the way it still runs great and don't smoke and has good compression) been doing it for years with blowers, chain saws, weedeaters, tillers, pushmowers, LT, mowers I got off the curve that someone throwed away cause the couldn't get it started in the spring, and even my 67 ranger after it was in storage for 6 years. So far I have lost an engine due to wear or oiling problem yet, matter of fact the curb mower has been runing fine for 4 years now and all I did was clean up the fuel system and comb. chamber, changed the oil and blade.

The carb. cleaner burns off quickly and the gas being sucked in on two strokes has oil in it so for the couple of seconds with no load on the engine it don't hurt a thing except for cleaning out the crank case and comb chamber.

Now don't go and fill the gas tank up with carb. cleaner and go weedwacking cause after the engine warms up and you pull a load on it the heat will cause it to want to freeze up after about 5 mins or more. remember I said a few seconds not weedeating your hole yard.
yungman
16 years ago
I forgot one important thing......You put 7cc into the plug hole??!!!! That is a looooooooooooot of oil!!!!! You can just put a few drops of oil and pull the rope a few times and call it the day!!!

I am a home owner and I like fancy lawn equipments, I have enough for a three men crew!!! The way I keep up is rotating them in storage!!!! I don't do oil. I empty the gas tank, turn the primmer bult face up and prime the bulb empty. Then I empty the tank again. Then I close the choke, hold the trigger to WOT and pull start it. Let it run until it stop. THis will pull most if not all the gas out of the carb. Then I pull a few mort time and hang it on the wall. I never have any problem in the last three years. If you take the muffler anytime, you'll see the piston is a little wet with oil, if you open the crankcase, you'll see a film of oil on the metal. Don't worry about no oil to coat the parts. If you going to store for over a year, yes put oil in it, just a few drops!!!!