Using 2 Stroke oil as engine oil

[woodlandfarms]

OK, Promise this is not me. This is a very good friend of mine who is very city who just bought himself a 40 acre spread in the country to get away from the **** that is LA. The story gets better as he closed escrow on Wednesday, moved out of his house in LA on Friday and Saturday was evacuated with no warning as he was ground zero for the big ventura fire...

But his house survived (his neighbors did not which is very sad) but power is months away.. He went to all the local places, looking for generators and found none. So he went to HF and bought the Predator 7000. It said "Buy Oil" and I guess close to the display was 2 stroke oil and he did not know any better.

He ran it hard yesterday, and this AM could not get it to start. He said the oil was low.

My advice, return it, but outside of that I said drain the 2 stroke out and put in regular oil. It turns over but does not catch sounds like the oil level is too low and not a direct impact of 2 stroke being in the crank case.

So words of wisdom anyone? I honestly don't know what the difference is between 2 stroke and regular engine, I assume Viscocity and all the additives but...

Update - Replaced the oil and it is running. I still have advised him to return the generator.

 

[Mace Canute]

It's quite possible the engine had a low oil shutoff switch that was JUST on the verge of shutting the engine off when he shut it off and when he went to restart it, it moved just enough to engage the switch.

As to whether any damage was done, I don't know. :confused3:

 

[ericm979]

Two stroke oil is usually straight 30 wt. The additive package is different. But it probably didn't hurt anything.

Sorry about the fire situation, even not losing the house it can be rough.

 

[newbury]

As long as he did not mix it 50:1 he's probably all right.

 

[jaydee325]

Any oil is better than no oil.

I’ve never seen a modern generator that doesn’t have a low oil shut off.

Recommend putting proper oil in the generator and test run it.

 

[CincyFlyer]

Two stroke oil is meant to burn in the combustion chamber, and as such is a "low ash" lubricant, with few additives that will cause fouling. If the generator only ran a short time with it, should be no issues.

 

[tony45]

back many years ago we would use 30# non detergent oil in chain saws.

 

[newbury]

back many years ago we would 30# non detergent oil in chain saws.

Back many years ago we used 30# non detergent oil in almost everything. We didn't have detergent oil.

 

[4get gto]

Manufacturer defect. They failed to tell him to put the "right" oil in it.

 

[DieselBound]

Stories like this make me feel better because I've never done anything LIKE This. And then I get to thinking that there's plenty of other (non-related) dumb things I've done...

I once grabbed the wrong spray paint to use on some engine exhaust headers. It was "high heat" paint, just not high enough. Stuff burned off like a lit fuse! And I wasn't in the middle of a crisis at the time.

Speaking of generators and sensors, big tip: run your generator before attempting to remove a coolant temperature sensor! I recently sheared one off (had a replacement that I was overly excited to install). 15 minute job turned into about a 6 hour one. OK... I better stop now.