Dieseling Briggs 3HP??

[The Muffinator]

I have an old 3HP Briggs engine that is quite worn out and burns a lot of oil.

Was riding the bike around the block when I noticed something odd about the performance, not like how it usually runs. A lot of smoke was coming out the exhaust, more than normal, so I look down to see if the choke got stuck and I noticed that the spark plug wire was off the spark plug, completely! Not even anywhere near the spark plug for that matter, yet it was still running??? :shrug:

The only thing I could think of is that it burns so much oil, that it started to run like a diesel off it's own oil and gas mixture inside the cylinder.

Compression is quite high for such a worn out oil burning engine.

 

[the beekeeper]

Your compression is good because the excess oil in the cylinder is sealing the rings better, and you probally have a bunch of excess carbon buildup in the chamber on the head too, if the buildup of carbon got hot enough it could ignite the incomming fuel mixture, I've see this on automotive gasoline engines, I guess it's possible with a little briggs too.........................Tom.