Troy-Bilt Lawn Edger with tiny 4-stroke engine

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I received a new Troy-Bilt lawn edger today with the smallest 4-stroke engine I have seen. The crankcase only holds 3 ounces (yes, three ounces!) of oil! Obviously the oil level will get checked at each use of this machine, only two or three times per year.

Does anyone have experience with this engine?
 
I had a trimmer and a cultivator with a Ryobi 4-cycle engine. Did make me want to laugh changing the oil. I use that much oil a day in my SL2.
 
Originally Posted By: HalfHappy
Who makes the engine. I just had a visual of using a hypo to fill the crankcase.


I am not sure who makes the engine. It is 29cc size and may be a Ryobi, they seem to sell a number of 4-stroke string trimmers with similar sized engines.

Your mental picture of a syringe is not too far from the truth. The edger came with one of those 3.2 oz oil bottles usually containing 2-stroke oil for a 40:1 mix, except this bottle was labled 4-stroke oil and had a nipple & cap top!

The oil fill is on the side of the crankcase, located inline with the crank's centerline. Remove the screw-in plug and squirt in enough oil so that the oil is flush with the bottom of the hole.
 
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I owned a Troy-Bilt 4-cycle string trimmer for a year. I didn't care for it at all, but it could be a great engine for an edger application. Probably work out fine for you. FWIW, I used Shell Rotella-T 5w40 in mine. A whole whopping 2.7oz.

Joel
 
Ryobi has not made it's own engines or some of it's own outdoor equipment in the past. They used Zenoah in rebadged Redmax saws, and some repbadged/shared badge Poulan and Troy built power equipment. The lineage of who makes what is worse than a CSI episode.

Th 4 cycle Troy Built was beat up on another site for poor reliability and hard starts. I never know if that means it was bad, or not taken care of???? I an hunting a used one to tear it apart.
 
I had great luck with a Ryobi 26cc 4 stroke trimmer I bought reconditioned 7 years ago. The uppper drive shaft broke about a month ago, and I really didn't want to put $50-60 into it to fix, so I decided to try one of the Troy bilt 4 strokes, since they are basically the same as my Ryobi. I first tried the new "commercial" 25cc model, and it started right up but ran horribly. It sputtered and stumbled and had no power. Seemed to run very lean. I took it back and bought one of the cheaper 29cc models which is the "improved" version of my old Ryobi. It ran ok- once you got it started. It took me about 50 pulls to start, and I followed the starting instructions to the letter. Needless to say, it went back too. I ended up with a Husqvarna 128L 2 stroke, and it is terrific. It starts right up, has plenty of power, and runs very clean. I finally found a place that carries the upper driveshaft for my Ryobi and it's only about $30. I think I'll fix it and keep it as a spare. I think Troy-Bilt's quality went to [censored] when MTD bought them.
 
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