The saga of the Tecumseh

[fdcg27]

You see a number of posts about how well Briggs small engines hold up, so I thought I'd detail the saga of one of my Tecumsehs.
I bought the mower at Target on clearance for $70.00 in the fall of 1997.
It is a 21" MTD Lawnflight, with a Tecumseh of, I think, 4.5 bhp.
The Tecumseh has never had its oil changed and only got its second plug two weeks ago. The original Champion was pretty well destroyed, to the extent that the thing would barely run.
I used the mower almost exclusively on my large yard for ten years, 1998 through 2007. In the spring of 2008, on the first cut of the year, the blade had about 1" of its tip fail and break. This caused the mower to vibrate noticeably. I finished mowing the lawn, about another fifteen minutes run time.
Oil had leaked out underneath, from the crankshaft bushing, as a result of the imbalance. I parked the old thing, and used my other mower for the rest of 2008, and for 2009 until a couple of weeks ago.
I bought a new 21" blade, along with an air filter and a couple of other things, from AA, using the $10.00 coupon.
I installed the new blade, and used ether spray to bring the old thing to life.
It idled well, but died under load.
I removed the plug(for the first time), and cleaned it. The center electrode was pretty well gone, to the extent that the porcelin surrounding the center elcerode had been erroded. I cleaned the plug, put it back in, and finished the lawn.
I bought a new plug last week (Autolite), installed it yesterday, and cut the lawn.
The mower ran strongly, with no leaks from the crank bushing.
I am estimating that this engine has run about 400 hours.
I have never changed the oil on purpose.
The machine was very cheap, and I wondered how long it might go with mere topping off.
I guess it will go for quite some time, although oil consumption is now around 3 oz/hour.
I am in awe of how durable these cheap engines are!

 

[SuperDave456]

When I first joined BITOG I had fun just going through the 100's of pages of old posts and reading up on whatever looked interesting.

There are many MANY 30+ year old mowers out there that have yet to have a "real" oil change on purpose. Their relatively loose tolerances and splash lubrication pretty much makes them indestructible.
I think there is even a story about an old lawnmower that belonged to a 60 year old retired guy that seized while a BITOG'er was out in the neighbor's yard. The 2 guys got to talking and the retired guy had had his mower for 25 years and never changed the oil.
After they let the engine cool they changed the oil and the plug and the mower started right back up.

Every mower my family has ever "thrown away" was because features on the deck or transmission were going out. And each one was picked up by someone out trash picking they disappeared long before the trash man came and are probably out there serving someone else well.

 

[pidster]

You'll probably get years more as long as you keep it topped off. But after that kind of service, I think that little motor has earned an oil change.

 

[Turk]

...and with all the neglect we see and hear about small engines, do you think we're going to stop obsessing about oil? Uh, no.

 

[ksJoe]

I also bought a new mower around that time (98), which had a Tecumseh. It was a snapper, and had pressurized lubrication, and a 5 year engine warranty. This was supposed to be a very good engine, and that was about double Snapper's typical engine warranty. Dad was a dealer back then, and that engine was a high cost option.

I changed the oil and air filter every year, and it was only used on my own lawn (maybe 6k square feet).

Early in the mowing season of 08, I was starting it. It started like it always did. 4-5 pumps on the primer bulb, then it fires right up. It ran for right around 1 second, then ground to a stop. As in, it made a metalic grinding sound as it quickly died.

I opened it up to find several teeth sheared off the cam gear. With metal chunks in the sump, I wasn't eager to fix it.

But the deck, transmission, etc was in great shape. So I bought a honda GCV190 (6.5) engine to put on and keep on going.

 

[fdcg27]

So maybe the cheap and simple side valves were actually better for typical lawn mower service?

 

[af0h]

About 30 years ago, my dad bought me a small mini-bike with a centrifugal clutch and a 3 or 4 hp Tecumseh (don't remember exactly).

That stupid thing still runs today - very few oil changes, almost no maintenance, parked it about a month ago - my
daughter is almost tall enough to ride it now.

Centrifugal clutch is wore out, but little motor runs just fine.

af0h - Rob

 

[HM12460]

i have a cub cadet walk behind lawn vacum that was new a year ago. it has a tecumseh engine on it.

 

[Nick R]

My grandfather has a 60s/70s Centrifugal clutch, 2 speed mini bike powered by a 49CC OHV Honda engine. It probably has at least 1000 miles on it just from my and my siblings use. God knows how many miles it had on it before. It still runs pretty well. It really needs a rebuilt kit though, it is starting to have issues with power and starting. But its been indestructable.

 

[Scdevon]

Wow. And I felt guilty about using SuperTech multi weight 10w-40 that I had lying around during my YEARLY oil changes (~15 hours) in my 12 year old Tecumseh lawn mower.

I'm pretty sure that air cooled lawn mower engines should have straight 30 weight all the time.

 

[gj]

I remember my first introduction back in the 70's to 2 cycle was a Tecumseh 3hp lawn mower.I thought for a long time that's all they made.They were pretty good engines.You had to be careful if you loaned it out,some people couldn't understand the whole mixing oil with gas thing.I also remember a mower with a "Clinton" engine.