roadbike -- Here are the answers to your questions with regards to my tiller : 1) No -- It takes me at least 6 month to go through 2.5G 2) Not sure -- a typical plastic gas certified container (is there something to look for?) 3) Yes (but perhaps not from now on) 4) Yes I spent $20 and rebuilt the Walbro WYL carb and it fired right up although it seems to have a minor issue with the high-end RPMs wanting to stall a little. There might be some other gunk further in I suppose. I was able to use it just fine last weekend. Darn carbs have itty bitty parts! BTW: IF I want to use something like MMO, is it a few Tablespoons in the volume of oil in the small Honda 4 strokes or ?? Unfortunately, this tiller does not see lots of use like the mower/edger/weed wacker.

Well, I must be the oil changing axle greasing nerd cause I do it religously every year. my 20 year old LT4000 axles looks like high polished crankshafts. I'm also the idiot that's completely disassembles my LT's to clean, inspect, and lovingly put it back togather. This also includes washing out the gas tanks and the wiring harness for cracks or bare wires. My 400 dollar LX266 looks like new under the fenders and hood.

In this picture I had a blown head gasket. You can see the breach area at around 2:30 o'clock. Mine was a slight breach visible on the gasket side that faces the cylinder. My mower ate about 2 ounces of oil per hour, a lot less then your but perhaps your breach is much larger. Certainly look closely at that head gasket, as the others have suggested. With my new gasket, installed in the spring, my mower ate absolutely no oil this entire season. Sniffing your oil dip stick for gas is another possibility. I would suspect that if your carb is leaking gas into the combustion chamber and then into the oil, that your mower would also take quite a few cranks to start. If it does, then flooding could be your problem, if it doesn't then I would suspect the head gasket. By the way. My tractor is also a 16.5Hp B&S made in 2004. If it is a gasket breach let us know and we will give you the upgraded torque values and sequence to keep it from happening again...or at least delay it somewhat. This post was edited by optsyeagle on Tue, Sep 16, 14 at 11:50

OK, what you have going on is known as an ice dam. A very common thing in the Northeast, especially in years where there is early snow when the sun is so low in the horizon, and the temps are very cold as they have been recently. The popular long range fix is roof work and added insulation, etc, but you can make a big difference right away by getting a roof rake and removing the snow after every snow fall. Get a roof rake with a lot of extensions and you will be able to reach a roof above a two-story-with-full-attic building. The good news is that you don't have to rake the entire roof, just the sections where you are getting ice dams. When using the rake be VERY CAREFUL around overhead electrical lines. It takes a bit of practice to get used using the roof rake, and for years I left it up to husband. Last winter he was unable to do so I tried it on my own and though it took some effort, it is do-able, even by a very middle-aged woman. It especially helps if there are adjacent roofs (wings, additions) you can perch on while raking so you're not working at such a high angle. I don't do it from a ladder, though, even though I am quite at home on them. I'm either standing on the ground or another roof. Now about ice dams: first of all be aware that there are two things called ice dams. One type is the little metal brackets that people install on the roof to keep masses of snow from falling as a thunderous sheet over doorways. That's not what were talking about here. For this discussion an ice dam is a place where you have melted snow that freezes on the roof which eventually builds up and blocks the downward flow of other melting snow. This backs the water up under your shingles allowing it to run down the exterior sheathing or interior walls and ceilings, sometimes for great, perplexing, distances. The most commonly cited cause of the ice dams are houses without sufficient insulation to keep the heat from rising through the exterior walls to the roof, melting the bottom layer of snow, which then refreezes when we have really cold periods, crating the ice dam. The conventional cure involves added insulation, blocking intra-wall air-channels, sometimes removing and relaying roofing with Grace water shield underneath it, etc. Unless you actually have a frank hole in your roof, with uncontrollable cascades of leaking in, I would try to put all that off for now. (Though you will have tons of contractors scaring the pants off you if you call them out to look at it.) Let me tell you about my experiences with ice dams. I live in the NE in a very old house with no insulation in the walls. And none to very little in the attic. Some years we have had ice dams, but none since we started removing the snow from the roof after every storm in the early season. (By March it becomes less urgent because there is more sun to melt all the snow off promptly, but right now it's a problem.) One thing I have noted about these old houses is that when they were built they didn't seem to have such a big problem with ice dams (and certainly no lightweight plastic or aluminum roof rakes to attack it with). It stands to reason that they would have altered or modified building techniques if ice dams were such a persistent problem as they are today. I think it is related to how we heat our homes, particularly because we now heat with radiators along the outside walls, warming that air column straight up to the eaves where ice dams start. And we keep our houses much warmer than what was expected before. So in some ways, I think we have created a problem where there wasn't one to begin with. However, the customarily recommended long term cure is to fill the wall cavities with insulation blocking the rise of heat along the eave walls. (Though adding insulation has its own, different, issues.) In addition one can remove and relay the roof shingles over a good water shield. One can use electric ice melting cables along the eaves. (I am wary of these as there have been some reports of fires connected to their use.) Or one can rake, which is what I do. Plus I maintain a careful watch on any spot where I have ever experienced any leaking and am prepared to interupt, dry or, just collect any flowing water. Since you now own an older house, you may feel overwhelmed with the new things you will need to learn about the care of it. The good news is that many, if not most, issues respond to lower-tech solutions. But it does take some time and effort to get in the old-house groove, which is very different from newer houses and much conventional wisdom is dead wrong when applied to older houses. The problem, at first, is figuring out which is which. But you have arrived, by chance, at a good resource. I'll attach a link to another excellent forum below. I have often thought it would be a wonderful invention if one could figure out how to apply a pnneumatic de-icing boot to the roof similar to what is used on the wings of aircraft. Have the right conditions, then press the switch, and the boot inflates and all the ice is just popped off, autom atically. (The good thing is that when raking the roof, you will get very warm from the effort, and it certainly qualifies for your daily stint of aerobic conditioning.) Molly~ Here is a link that might be useful: Old house web discussion forum