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Hi all,

It's my first post and I need some help. This is a Poulan lawnmower with GCV160 Honda engine. It was working perfectly last summer when I ran it until all the gas in tank was consumed. I always change engine oil at the beginning and did that yesterday as well as sharpen the mower blade. Engine ran on first pull but heard some knocking sound like metal against metal. When I take the blade off - engine runs smoothly. However, I have looked everywhere and blade is not touching anything. What could be wrong? Or is it still engine related?

Thanks a lot.
Madhu

new fuel and new oil of the correct viscosity before it was run this year? Check the oil for correct height? Any debris in the oil? All belts Ok, no rat or mouse damage?

Make sure the blade adapter, blade and engine mounting bolts are tight.

Thanks everyone. After reading your replies and went back thinking it had to be something really silly that i did. And that turned out to be the case. After putting in a new spark plug, new gas and everything it turned out to be blade!! It wasn't tight enough. All good now. Thanks again. Now i have white smoke coming from my black max gas trimmer - not sure what that is all about. I read online that this means too little oil but that is not possible as i added 10ml in 500ml of gas!

White smoke normally means water in the fuel. If the white smoke clears up after a couple of minutes, nothing to worry about. If it doesn’t clear up, dump the fuel in a glass jar, cover and shake vigorously. If it gets cloudy, or you see it separating at the bottom after sitting for 5 minutes, dump your gas and start over with fresh.

sgkent said:

new fuel and new oil of the correct viscosity before it was run this year? Check the oil for correct height? Any debris in the oil? All belts Ok, no rat or mouse damage?

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Guess you missed the fact that it ran fine without the blade being on the machine. Kind of takes the engine out of the picture all together. Glad that the OP went for the blade first because that is where most would have gone.

Rivets said:

White smoke normally means water in the fuel. If the white smoke clears up after a couple of minutes, nothing to worry about. If it doesn’t clear up, dump the fuel in a glass jar, cover and shake vigorously. If it gets cloudy, or you see it separating at the bottom after sitting for 5 minutes, dump your gas and start over with fresh.

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Yes that's the plan now. I am not sure from where the water will come though. For trimmer, I used fresh ethanol free gas mixed with oil in correct ratio (for lawn mower above I used the gas from fall although it had gas stabilizer in it). Last fall when I was done with the trimmer I ran it until all gas was gone.

another thing - it doesn't really smoke much or hardly any when idling. Smoke becomes apparent when I rev it. This was not the case last year or before. There is also some oil-like residue around the muffler. See attached pic.

If it clears up, just a couple of puffs, I wouldn’t worry about it. Left over fuel will collect water, even with stabilizer and an empty tank will contain moisture over the winter.

Welcome from east central Illinois,

Walt Conner

It's not clearing up on its own and gas was fresh from the pump (ethanol free). It's not a lot of white-ish smoke but certainly noticeable and enough to show that something is not right.

You guys are fantastic! Thanks a lot.

I put in Trufuel just to make sure. Same thing - still smoked when revved. So I left it running - after 15 mins same thing. About 30 mins - completely clear smoke.

Thanks again.

Thank you for letting us know, most people wouldn’t do that.