I got this in recently with the owner complaining about fuel leaking from the carburetor. I'm told it's "brand new", meaning a couple of seasons old with only limited use (two or three times). I went through the carb and it was very dirty with a sticky needle. It's a carb mounted flush to the engine so I wasn't surprised when I found no fuel in the oil. The tank fuel tank was empty when it got here.
So I cleaned up the carb, hooked it up to the water and it started the first pull....but there was a lot of white smoke and it ran rough for a bit before clearing out. I thought maybe the owner had tilted it while bringing it over and got some oil into the cylinder but they said they kept it level and I stuck a scope into the cylinder. It looked pretty clean.
Leak down was acceptable with nothing except some out the dip tube. But the numbers are good.
Started it again and again, had white smoke. It cleaned out after about 10 seconds but under load, it drastically looses power and RPMs drop. If I leave it under load for any amount of time, the white smoke starts again.
Head gasket?
Very few hours on it but that's the only thing I can think of. I didn't notice any valve leakage during the leak down.
Thanks