I have a Sears Craftsman mower with Tecumseh, major oil leak

engine numbers would be helpful buttttt.... the perimeter of the recoil assy should be 3-5 small screws. remove them and it should come off, the is as long as you have a eagerbeaver engine ( tecumseh ohv )

good luck... but your number says craftsman all over it. have about go to sears and type in that model number... your Tecumseh number would be like an LV160 or something similar

Tecumseh engines usually recommend SAE 30 oil. Briggs engines allow 5W 30 or 10W 30.

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Have you tried tightening the bolts up, engines produce crankcase pressure, it could be this causing the oil to leak

Did you over fill the engine with oil?Some times the seal where you put oil in the engine is bad.You should be able to see where its coming from.

Usually the quickest way to date lawn tractors is to look for the date code (Briggs and Stratton) or the D.O.M. (Tecumseh) for example. So on a Briggs engine there is a long three part series of numbers: model; type; and code. The code is the date code and the first two digits are the last two digits of the year made, the next two are the two digit month, followed by the next two which are the two digits for the day. This is how I get a decent idea of the age of a mower, assuming the original engine is on the machine of course. If you have a Tecumseh engine, it has a four digit DOM before 2004 and a five digit from 2004 on. The first digit of the four digit version is the last digit of the year. From 2004 on with the five digit the first two digits represent the last two digits of the year. Either way with Tecumseh engines the last three digits would be the day of the year. For example a Tecumseh engine 05222 would have been made on August 10, 2005. If you have a Kohler, I am not sure about that one as I have not had to date one yet, but the vast majority of the engines I deal with for Craftsman, including my own are Briggs and Stratton.

I hope you find this helpful.

It sounds like you float needle valve is stuck open and allowing gasoline to drain into the oil sump.
Sounds like you will need to clean your carburetor.
If the mower/weedeater is over a couple years old, then I also recommend that you buy and install a new carburetor repair kit,because the diaphragm will get hard and that will cause it to be hard to crank.
When you clean your carburetor and remove the jet screws, You will first seat the jet screws and count the number of turns it takes to seat the jets from their original position.
That way when you go to put the jets back in, you know how many turns they were in/out.
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About the first thing I would do is to pull the plug lead(s), tilt the mower up (resting it on something solid) and see if the motor shaft could be turned at all. I suspect you initial thought that it is locked up is correct.

Add the gas! No need to put oil into gas unless it is a two cycle, which I doubt. Have fun...Lee

There is a possibility that the head gasket is blown.

Until you are certain the issue of fuel being in the oil is resolved, internal engine damage could be happening. Inlet needle/seat leakage must be check with a leak detector or pressure guauge.

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