Small engine oil soaked air filter?

[shinnlinger]

Hi,

A neighbor lent me his fairly new wood splitter, and I have to admit it sure beats splitting by hand!  Anywhoo, I was splitting away after he dropped it off and it ran out of gas.  By then I had a pretty good pile of split wood and it was getting late so I simple stacked the wood in my kiln and went to dinner.  Today I hauled some gas up to it and fired it up but it sputtered quite badly and had no power.  The oil looked good so I checked the air filter and the paper element was totally wet and dripping with motor oil.  I pulled it and the splitter runs fine.  I will pick up some filters tomorrow, but what causes this?  Does it starve for fuel and suck oil?  Never had this happen before.

[thecfarm]

I have a 6 hp B&S and have run that out of fuel many,many,many times. That's how I use to tell when I had enough spilt for a week,it would run out of gas.

[Peter Drouin]

Not sure why, but not good. That's why I don't borrow a thing from anyone.
Be sure to tell him .Maybe it's under warranty.

[sawguy21]

A couple of things here. Most often it is because the machine has been tipped with the filter on the low side, oil enters the air box via the breather tube. It will also happen if the crank case is over filled. If neither is the case replace the filter and keep an eye on it.
A leaking head gasket on ohv engines or a leaking  crank seal can also cause it. The crank case normally operates under a slight vacuum, if air gets in the engine will push oil through the breather.

[Sixacresand]

Good call SawGuy. 

[pineywoods]

Assuming normal operation, (not dumped on it's side etc) possibly overfilled with oil or worn or stuck rings. There is a hose that runs from the crankcase vent to the inlet side of the air filter. Excessive blowby past the rings will over pressurize the crankcase and blow oil vapor up the hose and into the air filter. 

[sawguy21]

He says it is fairly new, rings would not be shot unless it has ingested a lot of abrasives.

[Farmerjw]

If they didn't go a good job on honing the cylinder, the rings can't seat well.  Also if they accidentally put the scraper ring (middle ring) on upside down it scrapes oil above the piston, or the top ring (compression ring) upside down they will get blow by under the piston causing the oil to blow through the crankcase breather tube into the air filter. 

[sawguy21]

Have you seen evidence of this on brand name engines?

[jd2007]

Possibly the float stuck in the carburetor or the needle not seating correctly in the carburetor & allowed the gas to go into the crankcase with the engine oil & it started coming out of the air filter through the carburetor?  I'd check the engine oil level & see if it smelled like gas.  Hope you get it figured out.