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I'm looking for a new grass trimmer. Ours is smoking from the engine. It doesn't seem worth it to fix it. Maybe just give it away. I believe most/all trimmers need a mix of oil and gas. Home Depot sells this pre-mixed but it seems expensive. I suppose we could just buy another gas can and use that for mixing oil and gas. Or would you recommend just buying the pre mixed fuel?
Any chain store and Walmart sell 2 cycle oil with metering attachment. Very easy to use. Get a gallon can for gas, mark it as for 2 cycle engine only, and that's it.
Just remember to not mix to much 50:1 oil gas mix as once it gets over a month old, it looses some performance and if it gets much older it gets "gummy". Bad news.
Portable battery lawn tools are not for everyone due to their lawn size, but I stop breathing two cycle fumes back in 2013 when I bought a B&D 36 volt string trimmer, blower, and hedger. I'll never go back to two cycle for lawn care other than my 4 cycle gas self propelled mower. And when they get electric mowers/batteries down pat, it may even find a new home.
I have worked the blazes out of all of my battery B&D tools especially the trimmer. And today they all still work well and I have only lost one of the original 3 lithium batteries not holding a charge. Not bad at all, while not dealing with smoke and gas/oil mix. I still have a Stihl chainsaw and Stihl Yardboss MM55 mini tiller though, to get my oil /gas fumes from. JMO
P. S. And be careful of buying four cycle string trimmers. Once a person is in the habit of turning their 2 cycle trimmer up sidewise to edge with it, it is a hard habit to break. Turn a 4 cycle trimmer up on its side for long time and one will lose oil circulation= a shot motor. Hmmm, now how would I know that one ? I bought one many years ago and trashed it using it on its side for too long.
Last edited by greglovesoldtrucks; 05-22-2019 at 06:33 PM..
Better off buying the pre-mixed fuel since it has no ethanol and also has fuel stabilization added in. Yes, you can mix your own for a few less pennies but the 2 cycle engines, especially mine, love and run great on the pre-mixed.
If your looking to go electric, which I plan to do eventually, it seems the EGO is the best by far. It also has the automatic wind system.
I had one, and it worked okay, but here's my warning on it (I learned the hard way). They take an INCREDIBLY TINY amount of oil. When an engine needs an incredibly tiny amount of oil, it seizes if it burns or leaks an UNBELIEVABLY TINY amount of oil. You have to watch the oil level with a precision eye. Personally, I prefer to mix the oil and gas together and not worry about it.
We do 99% of our trimming with a Ryobi cordless trimmer. It runs a good 20 minutes on a lithium battery. It's not for removing jungle but it does fine on 99% of the things we need it to work on. It's also the only trimmer that's light enough for my wife to use.
I had one, and it worked okay, but here's my warning on it (I learned the hard way). They take an INCREDIBLY TINY amount of oil. When an engine needs an incredibly tiny amount of oil, it seizes if it burns or leaks an UNBELIEVABLY TINY amount of oil. You have to watch the oil level with a precision eye. Personally, I prefer to mix the oil and gas together and not worry about it.
We do 99% of our trimming with a Ryobi cordless trimmer. It runs a good 20 minutes on a lithium battery. It's not for removing jungle but it does fine on 99% of the things we need it to work on. It's also the only trimmer that's light enough for my wife to use.
I use a Black and Decker cordless electric with a 20 volt lithium battery that I bought at a big box store for $90-100 four or five years ago.
I use it for trimming sidewalks, shrubbery and fence on our 5000 sq ft lawn after most mows, usually 20-30 minutes of actual trimming on the battery each time. Never had an issue with it for that kind of use.
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