Small generators - Oil leaks typical?

Thanks everyone for your input. Not leaking enough to tear it down yet but may make it a winter project later.

VAfan wrote:
Went to move my Ryobi RYI2000T after sitting for a ~year and found most of the oil had leaked out. No obvious oil leaking when I last used it. It's 4yrs old and used very little. Not finding an obvious fix on the internet. It only holds ~1/2 of a quart so not a huge problem - just aggravating.

If it leaked a half quart you would see a stain.
I think the oil may have burned nicely and went out the tail pipe.
Was low when put into storage. Just top it off and keep a better eye on it.

j.p.f. wrote:
my harbor freight 900 watt gen has never leaked a drop of oil, and I never change it either!

Funny! Ring Ding Ding Ding..........

Richard

The "obvious fix" is to identify the source of the leak, determine the reason for the leak, and repair it. Since it could be leaking from any of a dozen places for 100 different reasons, you can't get more obvious than that.

Most likely any seals are standard size, and can be obtained from NAPA or a local seal and bearing supplier. Fuelproof silicone gasket maker was probably used to assemble the engine, so that's all you need for gaskets.

j.p.f. wrote:
my harbor freight 900 watt gen has never leaked a drop of oil, and I never change it either!

If I had one of those generators, I would change the oil every single time I used it.

That is a Chinese built Homelite, there are no gaskets or other parts available for the engine block assembly. If you can't fix it by tightening some screws, sit it on a piece of cardboard and keep the oil topped up.

That's not typical of most small engines. Likely culprit is a crankcase gasket. You might get lucky and are able to tighten the bolts on the bottom of the engine to reseal the gasket but probabilities of that are low.
Two solutions come to mind: Either consider it a self-draining oil system where half the change is done for you, only needing to add oil whenever in use or pull the engine out, remove the lower part of the crankcase, install new gasket, and attach base again.

my harbor freight 900 watt gen has never leaked a drop of oil, and I never change it either!

Both my Honda and my buddys Yamaha never leaded a drop.

That doesn't sound right that all the oil leaked out, sounds like a crack in the oil pan? No use for a year, yikes! I run mine once a month, on a space heater or water boiler, even in the winter - very expensive investment, I want to keep them limbered up.

My Yamaha 2000 are very difficult to judge "full" when changing the oil. A little usually leaks out if I ended up overfilling them... strangely it doesn't leak when they're running, but after cool down, usually in the truck bed especially of there's a bag of charcoal or groceries nearby - anything the oil can get on and make a mess.