wrote in message
oups.com...
My son just called and said his lawn mower is smoking badly. I'm
positive he over-filled the crankcase with oil since he claimed he put
in an entire quart. My experience is that most mower take far less
than that but he said he couldn't see it so he kept adding. He's going

to try to drain about half of what he put in and then see what happens.

My question is, if he did overfill it, what damage did he possible due
to the engine?


I've never seen a mower that didn't have either a dipstick or and overflow
to control the level. But most take at least 3/4 of a quart which is not
exactly "far less than ...". I always see warnings not to overfill but the
few times I've experienced it no permanent damage resulted. My Jeep dealer
regularly overfilled our Cherokee every time they changed the oil. And
once a dealer overfilled my Mazda Navaho but I caught that before I left and
made them drain a quart out.