Subj : Lawn Equipment To : JIM HOLSONBACK From : Karl Schneider Date : Thu Jun 28 2001 01:11 pm On (27 Jun 01) JIM HOLSONBACK wrote to ALL... JH> Most of this old equip. calls for 32:1 mix gas to oil. Nowadays at JH> places like Home Depot and Lowes, the only oil available is JH> pre-proportioned for a 50:1 mix. One sales/service place here, while JH> putting a new chain on the Homelite saw, advised me to use the newer JH> 50:1 oil in my old chainsaw, saying it would work OK and produce less JH> smoke. I don't see how oil can be "pre-proportioned", unless you're talking about a very small bottle that's supposed to be used with something like "one gallon". JH> But, I'm a bit skeptical, as older stuff may have had wider tolerance JH> bearings for the motor, and require more/heavier oil in the mix, JH> perhaps with a higher resulting viscosity. JH> Example of what is confounding my confusion - - label on the the John JH> Deere string timmer calls for 32:1 MIX with JD oil, but 16:1 mix with JH> some other oils. JH> Surely someone out there knows about this issue. All this is marketing hype. You can use plain old 20W motor oil. 70 cents a quart at Wal Mart. The so-called 'special' 2-cycle oils are just mineral oil with a little coloring in it and a high price tag. Don't worry about the 'smoke', if you can see it, there's plenty of oil and you can cut down a bit without any big risk. When you reduce the oil/gas ratio enough it'll quit smoking but of course some of the oil will be burned too. The only real "damage" you can cause by making the mixture too rich is plug fouling, so err on that side while experimenting and if it happens, pull the plug & wash it in gas. I can't imagine any reasonably modern engine needing more than 1:32, but you can double it without doing any damage. This all reminds me when I was doing optical equipment design work at Coburn Optical...they sold a "special" oil called Cherokee Oil (never discovered why, either a dispensation to the local Native Americans or just the name of the main drag in Muskogee, OK) that was nothing more than Dexron II repackaged in 1 gallon plastic jugs at 700% price increase. Of course the usual disclaimers applied, like "use of any other product in our hydraulic machinery will void your warranty, make your hair fall out, cause the IRS to audit you and make your wife frigid..." Or something like that. .... When subtlety fails us, we must resort to cream pies. --- PPoint 3.01 * Origin: Snug Harbor (1:170/501) .