Troy Bilt 4-Cycle Trimmer with Oil Leak

This trimmer is about 4 years old. I got it in an attempted to have all 4 cycle power tools so I wouldn't have to deal with mixing oil. But of course that didn't work out because you can't get 4 cycle chainsaws or leaf blowers. But whatever. This trimmer has been kind of high maintenance but when it's running, it works well.

So it all started with dirty shirts. Every lawn day, it would be done and my shirt was covered in dirt. I didn't think much of it but it got worse and worse. I finally took a look at my trimmer and it was pretty dirty so I cleaned it all up. I checked the oil and it was very low. Extremely low in fact, it ay have been completely empty, hard to tell. It's full synthetic so hopefully that saved it. Anyway, I topped off the tank and started trimming. That's when I saw fresh oil again pouring out of the top of the engine. Around the air intake it seems, although I have not taken the casing apart yet.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Any experience with oil leaks on tiny engines like this? In trucks I've had, the oil generally leaks from gaskets that get old. Is that likely to be the case here? I'm not sure what the layout of a 4 cycle tiny engine is, but is there a gasket somewhere that might leak? It seems to be coming out of the carb though which is strange. I'm hoping its not something much worse, like a cracked block. If it is, my next one will definitely be a 2 cycle (and a better quality brand than troy bilt) but for now I'd like to keep this one for a while.

Here's some pics of the fresh oil leaking out....

The image posting feature of this forum seems to be broken. I'm trying to upload my photos to post but there's no way to actually initiate the upload. It's like the "Submit" button is missing.

Edit: Got the images to work using the attachment manager, but the direct image upload-er does appear to be broken.

Make sure the breather hose that goes into the back of the air cleaner base hasn't came off. Unlike a mower engine the valve portion of that system is a rubber parachute valve located in the back of the air filter cover mounted to the carb. If that isn't the issue then there could be a gasket some place causing problems, but I would check the breather tube first. And Makita makes a 4 stroke handheld leaf blower. Quiet running like 64 decibels so you can actually talk over the top of the blower while running at full throttle.

Are you talking about this little hose thing? I assume you are because....

It was still attatched. But I pushed it on way, way tighter. Then I weed-wacked my yard and no oil came out.
However it did seem to bog down a lot easier in heavy weeds, maybe I made it too tight?

I don't fully understand what this is or how it works. And there was no visually obvious way to see if it was too tight, just right, or not tight enough.

Used the weed wacker again today. It still slows way down under load much more than it ever used to. And it started gushing oil again. It was running poor, like it was running on very little oil. Perhaps the lack of leaking last time I used it was just how long it took for the oil to seep through the air filter.

Any other thoughts? As much as I want to bash this thing with a hammer and go buy a 2 cycle, I'd rather not spend the money right now.

Running with low oil overheated the head and blew the gasket
Running with no oil chewed out the oil seal
Running with low oil buggered the bore so now you are getting excessive blow by

Running with low oil overheated the engine so now the muffler or carb is too loose.

you can punch the keyboard all day & all night or you can degrease the engine, clamp it in a vice of some sort, start it up and have a good look yo see where the oil is coming from.
Choice is yours.