Any Small Engine Gurus? White Smoke.

[jambo101]

Speaking from automobile perspective white smoke usually denotes water contamination in the gas or combustion chamber, burning oil has a noticeable blue hue to the smoke, i'd throw a bottle of water displacer in the gas tank and the gas can you use to fill the mower..
Also if the grass is accumulating under the mower you might want to think about getting the blade sharpened and/or mow the grass in dryer conditions like afternoon rather than mornings.

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by AndyAMG

Well everything is back to normal for the price of free. I changed the oil and then mowed the lawn for a bit. After about 5 or 10 minutes the white smoke went away and I pinpointed the rattle as the muffler. So much for friends "well versed" in small engines. I won't be tipping it anytime soon, I'm sure a little oil just got into places it shouldn't have been. I'll lift it level onto some sawhorses and clean it from the bottom from now on.

I tried the open side door method, didn't seem to make a difference. The choke point is on the mower body itself, there is a weird slight inward lip. The grass cakes up above the blade and around the sides and doesn't shoot out regardless of having the plastic clip-on deflector chute on or not. oh well. My grass is wet but it isn't much taller than the mower chassis. Thanks for the suggestion though. This will probably be my first and last Troybilt. or MDT.... or whatever its called these days.

Most of those small motors are fine if you tip them away from the carburetor. If I had your model number, serial number and type I could probably pull up a parts manual and confirm my suspicions.

I really don't know what the discharge chute looks like on your mower. You could try cleaning the underside of your mower real good just by shooting water into the discharge chute with the garden hose while the motor is running. If it cleans up and you see shinny paint; try spraying the underside with a can of silicon lubricant. I am not 100% sure that will work; but it works on snow blower chutes and snow shovels. Wait until the under deck is dry before spraying. For safety sake you should always disconnect the spark plug wire when working around the blade.

Happy mowing!