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Lawnboy Smokes a lot ????

15 years ago

I cleaned out the carb and left all settings on the carb as I found them. The mower starts on the 1st pull and runs great. Problem is, it seems to smoke quite a bit. I turned the screw on top of the carb to lean out the gas mixture to a pont where the engine started to stumble a bit and I made sure the oil/gas mixture was around 40 to 1, but still smokes. Could there be a lot of oil in the engine ( Note this mower sat with-out use for at least 5 years.

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Comments (5)

walt2002
15 years ago
Could be partially plugged exhaust ports.

Walt Conner
indy452
15 years ago
How long has it ran since first startup? Was the cylinder fogged b4 storage?

I'd run it for a good twenty minutes to clear it up and if its still smoking after that then we need to look at other options.
Walts suggestion is a good one.

Neal
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I'm a newcomer to houzz, but appreciated greatly factorypilot and walt's discussion. I'm also a beginning novice at small engine repalr. I have the same size engine, but it's a 287707 0225 01 single. It would start for ten seconds, then blue smoke, sputter and die. I cleaned the spark plug, waited a few minutes, and it would repeat the same thing. Opened the air cleaner compartment, and bottom of filter screen (foam) was wet with oil and gas mixture. I cleaned the plug again, leaving the filter and filter cover off. It started, but then began spurting oil/gas mix out of the crankcase breather portal. The gas is gravity feed to the carb , with no manual shut-off. The electrical connection at the bottom has the following designation on it. - 76-511 4294. No leaking from the carb area, and to my knowledge hasn't been touched for 25 years. I bought mower used in '96 and it was probably 5-10 years old then. I pulled the valve cover off - a little oil residue in there, and then the head. Gasket seemed in perfect condition - no deterioriation or breaks. I tried to pull the filter housing bottom off, but the one screw didn't allow it to separate from the intake manifold or carb body. Not sure how that comes off - and spindle for valve cover nuts doesn't appear to have anywhere to attach a wrench to pull it out. I'm not a carb person, so not sure what I'd do if I was able to open it up. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
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bogman
15 years ago
Rolm, whats the model number of your Lawn Boy. The fact that you have a mixture screw on the carb sounds like an F model or even older than that. Also 40 to 1 is a little lean. Should be 32 to 1 unless it's a C engine, then it should be 16 to 1.
rolm
Original Author
15 years ago
Walt, Nice call I did look at the exhaust ports and they were clean and the piston looked spotless But the muffler was all slugged up I cleaned the top of the muffler and I poured paint thinner in the muffler shook it for 5 minutes or so and then I blasted it with the water hose till it ran clean. Bolted everything together 1-pull start, it smoked for a one-minute and that was it. It now runs as clean as a 4-cycle engine I also added a bit more oil to bring it down to 32 to 1. Thanks again.
jim_w_ny
15 years ago
I nearly choked when I read about the ratios of gas to oil? mixtures for a Lawnboy. I quickly went out to check the manual. Nothing mentioned. Gasoline only. So what is this? It's a LB in the S series.

I'm a bad person. I've had that mower for at least 10 years maybe longer and never changed the oil or done anything else to it. No wonder it is hard to start.

I have a new John Deere which has this hour counter on it and a manual that stresses maintenance. Now I have religion and will treat my mowers differently.

So thanks for this forum and the helpful people on it!

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