Freebie generator.

[CTyankee]

Another freebie from my boss.

But this could be a case of....the object in the picture isn't what it appears to be.

This generator didn't live a cushy life in someones shed only to be brought out during a power outage.(Although it did start out it's life that way.) This was used about 10? years ago on a job site where it was the sole source of power for approx 2 months....and it ran a lot.

After that it sat in his basement. It was started(by me) once about 4 years ago. Someone who looked at it years ago and said it had a slight knock and may need a valve job. Still, for free I couldn't pass it up. It won't start now, but I didn't expect it would.

I had another project I was going to do this winter but this will probably change my plans. It looks like it will have to be stripped down some to make it possible to even work on the engine. Might even need to rig a temp fuel source to replace the large reservoir one on top.

Any tips would be appreciated.

 

[Junkman]

Put some fresh high test unleaded gasoline with the 10% alcohol. Then try to start it on either with the choke closed after spraying the either. If it starts, you have half the battle won. The alcohol in the gas will clean the carburetor passages, and you might not need to do any more to it. Let it run for a couple of hours till everything is cleaned. I did this with a small engine last fall, and it woks perfectly now. I might have gotten lucky, but it was worth the try.

 

[p_mori7]

You **** !!!

You should be able to get it running without too much trouble.

 

[wild cowboy]

change the oil and put in a high quality synthetic, Pennzoil Platinum or Ultra is fantastic - then see if the knock remains. That generator cost a fortune new and Hondas are very hard to kill, so it is probably fine! I would take it even if the engine was locked up! - lol

 

[kctyphoon]

I would say, absolute worst case, you could always swap out the engine with a cheap harbor freight one, and still have the generator and everything else that makes it a clean source of power.. I would first give it a shot and see how much it would cost to repair if need be.. Either way- that's a great generator.. I have a newer model on my work truck and the thing starts on the second pull no matter what the temp is outside..

 

[ihateminimumwage]

Check that the engine turns by hand and that there is compression. Drain the fuel out and fill with premium. Check and gap the plug, adjust the valves, and it should fire right up. Check voltage and frequency, if it's all good, change the oil after it warms up and throw new air & fuel filters in and it'll give you years of work.

Service manual should be online if you search. Congrats on the free generator.

 

[theoldwizard1]

If it is an OHV engine, check the valve lash.

 

[justme-]

1st, it's not the alcohol in the fresh fuel that cleans out the passages - it's the fresh fuel, and high octane fuel has no alcohol in it. 92 or higher. Alcohol reduces octane - which is the resistance of the fuel to combust. the opposite rating is called cetane and is what diesel fuel and kerosene are rated with.
I agree try getting it to pop on carb cleaner (not either - too much either can cause damage) then you know the compression, valves, and spark are fine. A good shop can rebuild the carb reasonable, or a replacement should be around a hundred. Just adding fuel is likely to get the build up of old fuel to start dissolving and heading through the passages plugging them up.

Next, a HF engine won't work - believe it or not HF engines are not metric shafts. In a mower, tractor, snowblower it's not such an issue to swap a pulley, but the gen head is another story.
After you get the engine running make sure it runs at 3600 rpm. That's the proper rpm for a genset to produce 120vac at 60hz. Any less and the power can damage electronics and some motors, any more and you risk damaging the engine. I would recommend having a PE shop run a load test on the gen after you have it running - a gen that is not exercised runs the risk of loosing the field magnetism, and without the measured load bank you really don't know what the genset is outputting and how much it can output. No, a power tool plugged in to test isn't going to tell you as much as you think it does.

Nice score - unless the get head is fried it's worth fixing this unit.

 

[madcrisis]

Nice score. About ten years ago (I was 13 or 14) I found a generator in the trash, with no pull starter and a broken carb with weeds growing out of it. I made my buddy help me carry it over a mile back to my house. Since the carb was broken I called the company who sent me a brand new bard for 20 buck. The motor had compression and spark. I slapped the new carb on there with some fresh gas and tied a rope around where the pull start was. Started on the first pull and ran great. I sold it a year later for 170. I thought it was a great deal but now I wish I had it still.

 

[AlexNGreen]

Alcohol does not reduce octane.
Quoted from Wikipedia " Racing fuels,avgas, LPG and*@#$alcohol fuels*@#$such asmethanol*@#$may have octane ratings of 110 or significantly higher."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating

One of the reasons some 92 octane has doesn't have ethanol in it is because it is intended for collect cars and offroad use. The fuel systems in some of those vehicles do not have components that can withstands alcohol without breaking down.

Second, not all gen sets run at 3600rpm. It is very very common but some do run slower, for instance diesel generators. The correct way to set rpm is to hookup a meter and adjust the rpm to the correct frequency.

 

[stonesfan68]

That's a Honda engine so I think a new carb is about $20. If that's all you have to put it in I'd say you did pretty well!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[jakemac]

Put new fuel lines on it while you're in there.

 

[slip knot]

Pull the bowl drain and fill the tank with fresh fuel. when you get the fresh fuel out of the bowl drain. replace the plug. Pull the spark plug and check for fire. with spark and fresh fuel the Honda will run. I'm willing to bet the noise everyone considers a knock is carbon fouling. Run some cheap alky fuel thru it and it will clear up.
Check the HZ set rpm's for @ 62 at no load. 60ish at full load . Run the hell out of it. Gennny dont like setting idle.

 

[justme-]

Alcohol does not reduce octane.
Quoted from Wikipedia " Racing fuels,avgas, LPG and*@#$alcohol fuels*@#$such asmethanol*@#$may have octane ratings of 110 or significantly higher."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating

One of the reasons some 92 octane has doesn't have ethanol in it is because it is intended for collect cars and offroad use. The fuel systems in some of those vehicles do not have components that can withstands alcohol without breaking down.

Second, not all gen sets run at 3600rpm. It is very very common but some do run slower, for instance diesel generators. The correct way to set rpm is to hookup a meter and adjust the rpm to the correct frequency.

don't believe everything you read on Wiki - anyone can edit it so it's authenticity is dubious. 92 octane is high octane available at any and every gas station in the US, it's not intended for off road anything or collector cars but rather high compression engines in all cars from the 1980's through today. Many current production vehicles require 92 or better. Both my HD Evolution twins need 92 or they knock, my 87 sporty much worse.
I stand corrected about the octane re methanol - I just read a report from the methanol institute. 92+ octane has very little methanol. It's not the octane rating that is of concern in small engines but the propensity for corrosion from the increased o2 in methanol in the fuel and the increased water the methanol adds to the fuel.

Agreed some (very few) gensets run under 3600 rpm - this is a Honda and it does run 3600, as do all B&S sets. Diesel's are another animal. Just setting frequency is a great start if you have a meter capable, but it's not the end all to test a gen head - you want to load test it and monitor the output.

 

[gungatim]

Increased O2 in Methanol?? I don't get it...Methanol is CH3OH, Ethanol is C2H5OH. Octanol is C8H17OH...see the pattern? they all have OH, the extra Oxygen molecule bonded to the Hydrogen makes it liquid instead of gas. Methanol has no more or less oxygen than gas.

Aliphatic Alcohols may absorb water more or less to an extent, but water is not "added" to fuel on purpose, nor is it's existance necessarily bad, unless it falls out of suspension and sits in the bowl/tank doing it's evil...

 

[CNGsaves]

OP . .. that genset looks nice and pristine, compared to some **** I've seen for sale on CL.

Yes indeed . . . . . . YOU **** !!!

+1 to flush out the entire fuel system and add fuel line shutoff between tank and the carb. Put in fresh straight gas (no alcohol . . . premium if necessary to get straight gas) that you've also added Stabil. Maintenance work like oil change, plug gap, valves is time well spent.

Once you get it running, add proper amount of Sea Foam to treat all the fuel in tank so you get any old carbon cleaned out from the inside out. Run it long enough to get up to full operating temperature and put a load on it with a space heater.

When you're happy with how it's running and producing juice, then shutoff fuel to carb and run it dry of fuel until it dies. Store it with dry carb.

 

[foghorn1966]

Or you could go this way with it as well.

https://www.propanecarbs.com/honda.html

Great score though!

 

[Dust Devil]

That thing looks brand new.

Those are good for thousands and thousands of hours service.

 

[Rookie2]

Prep'd many of those for a company i worked for ! Killer Deal ! Best dam generator out there ! one thing to look out for is a contaminated oil level switch that shuts down the ignition (from dirty oil)

 

[theoldwizard1]

Alcohol does not reduce octane.
Quoted from Wikipedia " Racing fuels,avgas, LPG and*@#$alcohol fuels*@#$such asmethanol*@#$may have octane ratings of 110 or significantly higher."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octane_rating

IF YOU ARE GOING TO QUOTE WIKIPEDIA AT LEAST QUOTE THE "REAL" WIKIPEDIA !

Wikipedia - Octane

"Octane" is colloquially used as a short form of "octane rating" (named for the ability of octane's branched-chain isomers, especially isooctane, to reduce engine knock), particularly in the expression "high octane." However, components of gasoline other than isomers of octane can also contribute to a high octane rating, while some isomers of octane can lower it, and n-octane itself has a negative octane rating

Wikipedia - Octane Rating

In a normal spark-ignition engine, the air-fuel mixture is heated due to being compressed and is then triggered to burn (relatively) rapidly by the spark plug and ignition system. If it is heated and/or compressed too much, then it will explode when triggered (detonate), or even self-ignite before the ignition system sparks. This causes much higher pressures than engine components are designed for and can cause a "knocking" or "pinging" sound.
.
.
.
Anti-Knock Index (AKI) or (R+M)/2
... in Canada, the United States, Brazil, and some other countries, the headline (advertised) number is the average of the RON and the MON, called the Anti-Knock Index (AKI), and often written on pumps as (R+M)/2).

 

[AlexNGreen]

IF YOU ARE GOING TO QUOTE WIKIPEDIA AT LEAST QUOTE THE "REAL" WIKIPEDIA !

Wikipedia - Octane

I don't understand the point of your link or quote?

The original post that I was referring to was regarding the inaccuracy that 92 octane gasoline doesn't contain ethanol because it lowers the octane rating. I simply posted the link to show that the denatured ethyl alcohol used in vehicle fuels does not lower octane ratings but can actually raise them. For instance, E-85 can has a 100- 113 octane rating.

My apologies OP for the thread jacking.

 

[Skin]

Some serious misinformation from a few posts in this thread. Octane is the resistance to burn, the higher the number the less likely for pre-detonation to occur. Gasoline cut with too much alcohol, or even cut with plain old E10, will INCREASE its octane rating a point or two.

Alcohol does clean pretty well but its major problem is it also causes oxidation and corrosion especially when the fuel has a chance to evaporate. Another problem is its hydroscopic meaning it retains water. For these reasons I always recommend keeping equipment topped up with stabilized fuel as opposed to "run dry". For a generator with a massive fuel tank (for a small engine) and relegated for emergency use i'd either swap the gas for fresh every year or siphon the tank and drain the carburetor via the bowl drain screw then store it away. Most people don't drain the carb, simply running it doesn't do it which is what leads to issues. Genuine Honda carburetor bowls are actually really convenient with a drain opened via a thumb screw.

Second, high test/premium fuel do not mean 100% gasoline. It depends on the the state and station. In MA I have never seen a station selling anything less than E10 across all grades of fuel.

Third, for most small engines your standard 87 gasoline gives you more power and has a more complete burn compared to using premium. The only small engines I've seen premium grade fuels recommended in are high RPM 2-cycles. Honda themselves recommends 87 in all their engines.

If the engine has a knock its probably mechanical as opposed to being pre-detionation.

 

[-Hey_Now-]

I need a boss like that