This has to be rage bait at this point.
Reclaimed Oil for push mower.
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I’m a closet motor oil reclaimer. ATF and coolant as well.
Reclaimer’s Anonymous.
Reclaimer’s Anonymous.
I wonder this too. Most small engines are around the one quart capacity and it makes no sense as to why you can’t use fresh oil.Why does everyone seem to want to run junk oil in a small engine. It isn't like they hold 10 gallons of oil.
Is a few quarts of quality oil cheaper that trying to find a new what ever to either put on the what ever or completely replace it?
The mentality seems to be:
Expensive OPE gets run its normal course for a season and exposed to the appropriate elements of heat and moisture. Time to change the oil? Sure, I got some already dark used oil of questionable origin. Bingo!
A lot of small engines are a huge pain to change the oil on too, and you end up making a big mess. Fortunately a lot of my own equipment I have put extended oil drain hoses on, or have come up with creative tupperware sizes for drain pans to make less of a mess, but if I'm going to be going through the hassle of tipping a lawn mower on its side I'm putting in the 16oz or so of new oil.
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- Feb 20, 2022
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I've started using my brake bleeder to vacuum out the oil from push mowers. It just takes a few of the cup-fulls to pull the half a quart out of the sump. Not too much of a hassle and better than tipping it over.
I kind of get the oil-reuse thought. It just seems like a waste not to re-use it somehow. I've tried making a cheap oil burner heater work as a waste oil burner (fail), used it as a wood treatment with linseed oil (50/50) with very good results, and even attempted to filter it and use it as a fuel (then chickened out). I'm going to refine my fuel processing, but its a low-priority hobby, not a need.
But the ROI needs to be there fore me if I'm going through the effort to change oil, it might as well be fresh and new.
But the ROI needs to be there fore me if I'm going through the effort to change oil, it might as well be fresh and new.
I always have a gallon or so of used motor oil that needs to be dropped off . If I absolutely HAD to have some oil to get a piece of OPE back in service I would use it . Routine maintenance ? No .
Does that 19.5 Briggs of yours have an oil pump? I bought a new Deere last year - 19, or 20, or 21 HP or something like that - and now you've got me wondering if it has an oil filter, and so by default; an oil pump. I hardly ever use it as I hate to mow the grass. I think it only has 4-5 hours on it and my neighbor uses it sometimes. <g>
I built a drip oil burner for burning lube oil - mostly compressor oil but I used to burn engine oil too. A pyramid of cast iron frying pans and sand. It worked well but it made the neighborhood smell like burning plastic bags when the barometric was low.
I do have an extractor I will use for certain machines and agree it does cut down on the mess by a lot. Flipping mowers really isn't too bad, but I guess my point was if I'm going through the process of changing any fluid in a piece of equipment, it will be with new fluid. If one is using old oil, why change it at all? Who's to say the oil coming out is worse than what is being put in?
Only if you work for an oil company.
In a real busy spring I could see a dozen potential junk mowers that roll in or that i find with no oil on the dip stick.
That's at least a whole 5qt jug to see if they run or if they are worth saving.
What are you talking about questionable origin? The reclaim oil I use in small engines only comes from my daily drivers and is only oil that's drained out of the sump and goes straight into a new oil bottle that's empty.
Used ope oil, gear oil, P/S oil, oil that runs down the outside of the oil filter, oil from inside the the oil filter, metal flake oil, oil that's blacked out or of unknown age get dumped in to the combustion grade oil storage. Combustion grade oil only gets used for one thing....
Once the crud has been flushed out I put new oil in them.
How do I know the used oil is better than what's in there?
Used ope oil to the naked eye is opaque black usually, may have visible metal flake, usually has visible metal powder.
Used motor oil fromy car or truck usually has under 5,000mi and less than 125hrs and often times is tested when changed and tests good.
Under my microscope used ope oil that looks clean can have dozens of single digit micron metal particles visible in the sample at any given time. Dirty ope oil can have hundreds to thousands of these particles visible at any given time in the field of view.
When I put a sample from my daily drivers they typically have between 0 and 3 particles visible at any given moment.
Reclaimed oil that's been sitting for a month that came from my daily drivers allowing all the particles to settle out has zero visible particles across dozens of samples I've pulled.
So yeah I know it's cleaner. I've looked at it under a microscope.