Publisher's Note: Welcome to our 20th edition of Tech Tips Tuesday on "The Essentials of Two-Stroke Engine Lubrication".  We'll be re-publishing an edition of AMSOIL Tech Tips for you every Tuesday.  Click on the Blog Category "Tuesday Tech Tips" to see everything published to-date.

The Essentials of Two-Stroke Engine Lubrication

John Gardner: Two-stroke engines need lubrication just like your four-strokes do, but we do it a bit differently. We actually mix the gasoline and the oil together. Welcome to this AMSOIL Tech Tip: Two-Stroke Cycle. How does it work, you ask? Great question.

Take a look at this right here. You can actually see it in action. What's going on here is you have two strokes: the piston's either going up or down. I'm going to make it simple. When the piston's going up, opposite of compression is vacuum, so on this side, we're actually pulling the fuel in. Now, what's going on? Fuel and oil, because there's no oil down here in the sump. So, that's massively critical, and the oil is massively critical to lubricate the parts.

Now, the next stroke, it's obviously on its way up. When it's on its way up, we cover up the intake port, and we're pushing everything out, using a transfer bypass tube to get it up there and get it out. So, both of these have to be lubricated, and they have to be lubricated all the time.

Then, all two-stroke oils are not created equal, are they?

"That's correct. Especially at AMSOIL, we formulate the two-stroke oils for the needs of that equipment. So, if we're talking about a string trimmer or handheld commercial lawn and landscape type of equipment, SABER is formulated specifically for those. It has a very high dose of anti-wear. It's going to be able to provide top-notch protection from a lubrication standpoint.

Deposit control is critical because these machines run extremely, extremely hot. And also, you know, you think about two-strokes: weed eaters, dirt bikes, even outboards are still two-strokes. A lot of that gets stored, and that's a big problem too. We're storing them for a while, and breakdown and just the fuel and issues and oh, it's just hard to start, right?"

"One of the biggest complaints we get, or maybe you even know this, is that the weed eaters don't start. So, what we've done is we've built a stabilizer into the SABER Professional product to take care of that. So, as long as you're mixing the SABER in your gasoline, you're stabilized and protected."

Well, no doubt, I'm going to get the SABER, and you can too.