"Srgnt Billko" wrote:
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.

I've seen over-fill foul out the spark plug on a mower..makes it smoke real
bad until you drain off the excess, no biggie.