Single cylinder 4 stroke gas powered engine

Customer Complaint:
- Engine was making strange, loud noises
- Engine was emitting smoke from exhaust
- Upon inspection oil was empty
- Customer replaced oil

Personal Observations:
- Large amount of oil around the base of the engine.
- Pull-start cord will not turn over the motor

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Feel free to ask questions to see if you can guess what happened.
My first hypothesis turned out to be right was right.

After a few trys, or if someone gets the answer, I will reveal how I came to my conclusion.

 

Customer ran the engine upside down?

 

I dont think so.. But I've seen stupider things.

 

Engine was Hydrolocked. The customer probably transported the engine at an angle and the oil run throw an open valve and filled the cylinder full of crankcase oil. Seen this before.

Just remove spark plug pull crank rope and all the oil will come out of cylinder. Clean plug give it a shot of either (make sure you fill oil case up first) and let that baby run and smoke for about 10 minutes and it will be as good as new.

 

Nope not hydro locked.

 

Put gas in the crankcase?

Hey, I'm trying some people do strange things.

 

Haha nope. Not yet.

 

Rope pulley came loose from flywheel housing and was binding flywheel.

 

Nope.

Want the answer?

 

Cornfused customer put that thar gas-0-leen in duh krankcase and earl in the gasoleen taynk. sheuute.

 

Yes I would like the answer !! P.M. me I'm out of answers, Ha Ha.

 

After PM and picture sent I will have to agree with your conclusion. I don't doubt your expertise at all.

 

Engine was run without oil for too long and blew a connecting rod which cracked the block.



The only reason I was able to diagnose it so quickly was because I have seen this exact thing before. I first saw it on a video called "No Crank, No start diagnostics" by a fellow named "Eric The Car Guy" (who just happened to also be the reason I started doing videos of my own). He had a car that exhibited many of the same symptoms, so I started by doing the same things he did.

The very first thing I did (actually, I did very little. Its not my dept but the guy in the dept doesnt know a socket from a vice grip, so I had to instruct him) was to remove the spark plug. I told him to do that and came back 10 minutes later to see him just finish getting it out.

From there I looked down in the cylinder and verified that it was not hydrolocked. It was not and the cylinder looked good, from what I could see.

I found a long masonry drill bit that was laying near by and used it to push on the piston head. The piston moved down about 1/2 inch. I then was able to raise the piston that 1/2" using the pull string. However the pull string could not pull the piston back down and locked up until the piston was manually pushed back down.

I pointed to several bolts around the base of the motor and told him to remove the ones holding the motor to the compactor, and the ones holding the belt guard to the compactor. This was yesterday.

Fast forward to halfway through today's shift and he finally gets it off. Now the motor is exposed and I find the crack. Just what I had expected. After a little more disassembly I verified that the connecting rod had in fact snapped.