I figure you guys seem to know everything here.

Early to mid 2000s 9hp craftsman snow blower I was given. Sat for years, not used much ever though. Needed a clean up and some of the transmission unstuck. Drained the oil, did all that, put a rebuilt non cali carb on it, and started it up.

My sleep deprived dumb *** forgot to put oil back in it.Ran for 10-15 minutes before stalling out, then a bunch of pulling on the recoil starter and put it away for the night. Today was a bunch of running of the electeic start, ran for about 2min, stalled, then I realized my mistake. Dumped in 10w30, spins over way easier, ran it for 20-30min while I checked all the functions and tuned up the carb. Gonna drain the oil tomorrow and put fresh in.

Compression is 130psi, comes up in 5 or so even cycles. Seems to be happy. Put a new con rod in? Or just send it and see how long it lasts? I have a parts one out back, so NBD if it does need a new engine.

TLDR: dumb *** runs snow blower that sat for years with no oil for 15min until it stalls. Wonders what's wrong. Keeps trying to start. Realizes and puts oil in. Seems to be ok. Send it?

 

I've actually ran a snow blower without oil for a solid 15 minutes, under very heavy load too. Drain plug backed off when i was running it at about 3am. Never noticed. Only shut it down when i noticed the entire muffler cherry red. Put oil back in it and it ran fine after that with just a slight knock.

I'm sure it will be fine. If it's easy to take the side of the crank case off you can see how loose the con rod is on the crank shaft.

 

Can't see why not just run it.

If it works, then it works.

If it dies in a year, I can't imagine the situation being any worse than if you'd rebuilt it today.

I mean, I'm sure there's a bunch of nasty **** in there right now that's making the oil sparkle. If it were mine, I'd drain the oil, then fill it with Marvel Mystery Oil (which is basically just mineral spirits) and run it for about 10 seconds to flush all the nastiness into the pan, then drain it again, and then re-fill with fresh oil, run it up to temp, and then drain it and refill with fresh oil one more time.

But aside from that, just run that bitch.

 

Yeah, just gonna send it. Oil didn't come out looking toooooo bad. I am suprised how little damage it seems to have done?

 

You have to remember that these small engines use splash lubrication. So, they are pretty much running starved of oil all the time. As long as you don't have it running so rich that it's washing the cylinder walls, they'll run.

The bearings are hard, too. Not like car engines where you can damage them with a stern look. So, you probably shortened it's life a bit, and it may start smoking sooner rather than later, but I doubt you really hurt it too much.

 

I ran an 18" Husq 2-stroke chainsaw through 2 tanks of gas on regular 87 in Virginia summer heat with no mix... neighbor had a tree down and like a moron, I grabbed the jug that he'd markered 2-stroke on. I was filling up in the shade, with cheapo tinted safety-glasses on and couldn't tell it wasn't mixed. I had the glasses off for a third fill-up and noticed... he had filled up the jug that morning and hadn't mixed it yet. I lectured him on how you pour the mix in ******* FIRST and then fill the gas on top of it so that your bro doesn't ruin his $300 chainsaw.

Anyways... I read on the internet how I'd probably destroyed it and it would never be the same, would make no power, and that I should basically throw it away before it blows up in my hand... 8 years and a dozen projects later, it starts on the 4th pull every time.