1953 Onan Generator Repair and Generator Buying Advice

welcome back everyone today the plan is to get this little Onan genset running this is a 120 volt AC generator set it's rated a thousand watts it's an Onan model 10 LS I picked this generator up a few weeks ago it was listed on Craigslist it was in Philadelphia which I work a lot Philadelphia so I was able to pick it up on my way home from a job which is very handy so this video is going to be similar to the last Onan jet set video which you can kind of see it it's probably right down there that was the 305 CK gen set I want to do something similar to to that video where we get the unit running we test it under load and determine whether or not it needs any further repair and is it if it does need further repair is does the unit is unit worth doing further repair on I want to try to make this video more informative than the last video especially for those of you that are interested in picking up an old piece of equipment whether it be a generator or a tractor or a pump anything really and are unsure of what to look for when when buying a piece buying an old machine whether or not you're you're getting you're value getting their money's worth and at what point you have to just walk away and say you know this is either too much of a project for yourself to handle out the time war in this case for myself to head off the time or you would end up so far in the hole financially with the project that it didn't make sense to carry that now for some people money is no object working on these things case in point is the big cat generator that I'm working on that unit by the time I'm done I would have will likely have more in it than I could get out of it if I wanted to sell thing is I don't want to sell the big cat generator is the kind of project that it doesn't matter what it costs to fix and get run I just want it to run and I want to keep it as I collect a collectible piece this unit I purchased really as a funding project take the car see what ails it get it running and eventually probably sell it not not looking to make a profit where I sell it so much so as just I'm looking to the my the profit is going to be in the entertainment value of getting the unit running and making this video so I'm going to cut the video here I want to take you and show you the little cart this unit came it was on when I purchased it so let's cut that video okay sorry about the wind noise I'm trying to block it as best I can this is the little cart that the own antenna LS was installed on when I purchased it I don't really know the history of this little cart it it looks like a combination of factory built and with some home-built homemade accessories the the exhaust system here is obviously not not original it looks like it's two glass packs and series to try to to silence it a little bit and pull that out of here the fuel tank I don't know what the deal is with that it's interesting that it has it has this little relief that's been stamped into it and a kind of allows the paint job but it's got this little relief its stamped into it and when the unit sits on this cart this relief is actually necessary because the MLL the generator would would contact the tank otherwise and what is this Cadillac Cadillac gas cap it's very interesting it's heavy as hell a little bit of liquid left in there let me turn it up you can see the bottom be the axle and the supports are a casting drip a little bit of fuel there it's kind of an interesting setup but it's got like a flat plate bar stock welded frame so it's interesting it could be cleaned up and made to be serviceable a little battery tray here seen better days well let's go back inside and get to work on the jensen okay let's get back to the things that I look for when I buy a project like this a used piece of equipment something that's typically antique it's got a lot of years behind it the first thing I look for is the presence of a data plate or a tag something that's gonna tell me who made the unit where the unit was made what model it is and what its ratings are in this case we have fat and Onan model 10 LS thousand watt 120 volt AC generator okay that's the first check off the list then I'll start looking the unit over and seeing it if it's an engine seeing if there's a way that I can turn the engine turn it over see that it does turn over that it's not locked up now people have varying opinions on whether or not you should rotate a piece of machinery like this especially something that you don't own because you can cause internal damage the genset depending on the or I shouldn't say genset depending on the piece depending on how its constructed internally if this unit had a valve that was rusted shut stuff down and you came over and turned the flywheel and went we're a little bit excessive depending on the internal construction you could say either bend a valve stem end of end of tap it or break the camshaft or break a tooth on the cam now you kind of have to use your judgment if you can rotate the engine freely feel a little bit of drag that's normal especially with something that's been sitting a while you don't want to go crazy you know maybe a quarter turn back and forth that's about it if it turns and you feel a little bit of drag that's good if you feel no drag well that could be a good or bad so Dave tag make sure the thing turns over now if I forgot to mention if the data tag is it present or if it doesn't turn over that's that is not necessarily a reason not to buy the piece of equipment I've bought many things that did not spin or that were locked up tight in a case in point the catch and said again now I've also bought things that we're missing the tag I tried not to do that very often having the data tag is very important for me but all those two things aside next thing I look at is how complete the unit is overall if it's you know take this one for example does it have the road starter cuff on the front of the flywheel you might not be able to see that from where you're at does it have the air filter is to have the carburetor does have a fuel pump because the sediment bolt for the fuel pump there does it have an exhaust system obviously I cut that exhaust system off here in case like this various accessories like the the thermostatic governor here that moves the ignition what's that look like this one has a replacement wire on it which is actually coming out of the wrong location this hole I believe should be just plugged in the spark plug leech out here being this is an electric start model things like is the ham hater glass cracked the charge rate control knob is that there is the governor linkage move freely is the governor linkage complete it's the carburetor original things like that little accessories like the fuel fill the fuel cap or not the oil fill in the oil cap looking over the unit further let me take you off the tripod here various cast components like the NFL is that in one piece is it broken out are things missing on it I didn't notice this when I first looked at see there's a little little piece of cast missed missing from this cover not the end of the world then you move on to the internals of the generator and the controls what's that look like there mouse nest in there is a corrosion this it looks like it looks like it would sit in the damp place for a while there's no no serious corrosion no real evidence of mouse intrusion it's really not that bad overall just a little dirty has it been repainted this unit has a time or two it's like we got green paint over some yellow paint it was probably a very dark green originally here's that rope starter sheave now one thing I also didn't notice when I bought the unit I wasn't taking my own advice is you got some welds here so looks like this cast iron she for the rope must have split at some point this bolt also does not look original here's the important data plate that I mentioned earlier if it's a genset what's the condition of the exterior of the generator does it have a receptacle or any kind of wiring attached to it one thing I should have mentioned earlier if it is a gem set you again you only want to turn the unit about a quarter turn in either direction in case you got a brush it's dry or anything hung up in the generator end over all that's about it really I look for units that are pretty well complete I don't I don't like to buy things that are missing a lot of parts if the engines locked up or it has some some generator issue burned up wiring I don't mind Matt so much as missing parts is it if you needed to locate this air filter or this air for this air intake elbow or odd little things like that this intake combination intake exhaust adapter a cylinder head if you had cracked or chipped fins on the cylinder head missing generator and belt cover those kind of things would make me not buy the unit just I would spend more time and money and I'd probably have to buy a whole nother gen set to get the part I was missing it's very unlikely you're gonna find just this intake exhaust component laying on a table at a swap meet somewhere you probably find a whole nother unit and if you got lucky you would have this part but it would be missing another part some people don't mind doing that some people don't mind the hunt for parts I don't typically care for that I used to do it I used to buy a thing missing parts and either make the parts or or spend time trying to find them but I find that I don't have the time to do that anymore I want something that's complete that I can repair and then operate so let's get into the teardown and the serious analysis of this unit and determine what its gonna need to be running again all right oh it sold me this generator told me that he thinks it'll run without too much difficulty but the sparking so we're going to have to that's gonna be a bit of a pain isn't we're gonna have to get the engine to turn over freely pull the flywheel off and inspect the ignition points test the condenser all that trying to determine why doesn't have any spark now being a generator I'm gonna walk to view first set here being a generator I want to remove the brushes or or lift the brushes off of the slip rings and the commutator before I go to spinning it around excessively like I mentioned doyou don't want to score up the generator and let's take you off the stand and take a look in there a little dark and dirty but normal don't have any fins broken off of the generator cooling fan here that's a plus just typically just pop the brushes out set the spring back in the brush holder let the brushes dangle there that one might be a bit of a pain I think I'll have to get a little pick or a hook to get that spring off and then you got the ones on the DC commutator here kind of hiding let me pull those off and then we'll move over to taking the fan shroud off all right now I should just say lifting those brushes off the slip rings and the commutator of can be a bit of an exercise of patience but it's definitely worth it to avoid damaging anything so what I'm going to do is pull off this air filter assembly should be too difficult this whole thing is kind of loosely assembled anyway [Music] and spark plug it out so if that looks like in there carefully y'all banging these fins here looks like that didn't do too much running my only guy did say he couldn't get spark out of it got helicoil and the spark plug hole there where thread repair better pair insert [Music] quite a number of fasteners missing from this tight little mismatched looking as well top the end of the world [Music] [Music] almost looks like that trouser meant to be able to eat it's meant to be lifted straight off but this big task the pcs in the way take the bolt on the back side of SRAM is nice [Music] engine turns turns through with that the issue feel smooth feels like it has good compression to show the spark plug back in just for the heck of it this is the first time I actually spun this engine over all the way Wow that's excellent compression very good you know looking at those brushes I didn't show this but they look like they are they have either been replaced the word they have very little running hours on me because there they're almost the full length it would be if they were new I just put a hello let's just see what the spark looks like don't say anything there okay well one thing we might try first is look at the kill wire here I'm gonna disconnect that see where that's going down there to terminal number to see if I can disconnect that pull that wire out now that the Magneto's ungrounded let's see if we have spark now just to make sure it isn't something foolish like or not foolish but something in the control wiring that's giving us no spark nope still nothing all right let's get that flywheel off I gotta get to get get a few more tools and we'll be back to this okay let's see about taking this flywheel off five sixteenths allen bolt here allen screw take a closer look at that repair on their rope sheave here couple weld beads there and on the back it did a nice job yeah I don't mind that at all just a repair happens bolt back in most of the way well tighten it of course back out a few times screwdriver in behind the flywheel just to put a little bit of what I'm doing is putting the blade of the screwdriver in this gap here and I'm rotating it trying to rotate the screwdriver that's drawing the end play out of the crankshaft in this direction so the what I'm going to do is strike the head of this bolt with the brass hammer here that should dislodge the flywheel off of its taper on the crank take we're gonna keep tabs [Applause] read it I feel like it's loose bolt still loose you don't like it hopped off there is backside of the flywheel magnets who they feel pretty weak that's not a great sign take a look at the hub hub of the flywheel doesn't look like it's cracked looks like it's had a little trauma in the past right there okay let's take a look at the taper on the generator on the crankshaft oh boy definitely some trauma there look at that wow what happened to this thing wow it's like somebody put a pair of pliers on there or something that's not great wolf to dress that up with the with a file take those high spots off let's take a close look at the magneto now our coil spark plug lead the ground wires going up to a screw there for the condenser our primary lead primary winding lead go into the points and condenser there they're closed so for the points they're open right now alright I'm gonna take all this apart here sorry take the condenser off to the points off isolate the wiring for the coil will test the coil test the condenser and clean the points so you can get sparking all right now the points have been removed we can take a closer look at the contacts at the stationary and the movable point here they look good they've got corrosion and dirt on them of course but they should clean up just fine let's use the meter here and check the primary and secondary coil resistance the primary and secondary coils one end of each coil terminates here and this is grounded to the engine frame we'll check the primary first you see the meter still yeah okay a good idea to check the lead resistance first yeah about what I expect pretty much pretty much no resistance or very very low resistance to the primary coil and then we'll check the secondary coil keep one lead on the ground and put the other lead on the end of the spark plug wire kind of hook it in there 6.8 K so 6800 ohms that sounds about right anything in the in my experience with small engines anything in the the 5 to 8 thousand ohm range for a small Magneto coil like this is typically just fine you know what while we're here let's take a look at that condenser I almost forgot about that meter has a handy capacitance function on it you see that display yep set the condenser down here you know us shorted out I'm sure it doesn't have any kind of charge in it but never hurts to short it out set point 9 microfarad 800 nano farad well point 8 nano farad yeah it should be point 2 micro farad so that's shot that's way out of spec so let's say go ahead clean the points up and we'll work on figuring out how we can put a new condenser in there because I do not think I have one in this this you know package size with this mounting flange and the threaded stud gonna have to get creative there all right here's a look at our reassembled magneto the points are reinstalled and gapped to 18 thousands I cleaned up the taper on the nose of the crank here just took the high spots off I don't know what what in that could have caused the divots in there but cleaned up now replace the condenser I have a whole slew of these you know Universal 0.2 to microfarad condensers capacitors whatever you want to call them and I made a little strap out of copper sheet copper to hold it in there in lieu of the stud that the old condenser had that's stud right there I just tipped the the one lead from the new condenser heat shrink it brought it over with the terminal and used a little screw of number six screw and a nut to kind of cinch all those leads together and it kind of just it floats right here it's not directly attached to anything imma take you off the tripod here however I'm not all that concerned with that as this this copper strap right here is fairly rigid and it seems to hold everything in place if it becomes a problem I'll know where to look first but it's all it's all pretty well situated in there so let's go ahead and slap the flywheel back on it let's see if we get some sparks it should be an easy enough task Olivia turned on for that inside of the flywheel is pretty cleanly better like grass and debris looks like like this thing was this thing was stored in like a barn in Philadelphia if you can break believe that so little bit of debris in there aren't you serious seems to seat nicely so I don't think that either the flywheel or the crank knows were damaged by that those like the pop marks and knows the crank take that give that thing a little tighten not too tight don't don't know if we have spark yet might have to take it back off yep here see if that'll stay there for me hopefully new net wasn't gonna stay see if we get anything like I can see looks pretty good definitely definitely excited that'll run an engine okay well step one accomplished we've got spark let me tighten that flywheel bolt up fully and then I think I think we're gonna take a look at the generator and in the electrical aspect you know what know one thing I forgot to mention at the beginning of this video when you're checking out a unit that you want to purchase look and see what the oil looks like a complete can't believe I forgot to mention that we're gonna put the blower housing back on and we're gonna pull this plug here just stick a screwdriver or something down the bottom of the pan see what the what the oil looks like see if it's sludgy or what it should be fairly easy to pull this bottom pan on this unit if I have to so let's do that nap okay well loosen up the oil drain plug or sorry this is the fill plug already let's go down there and reach around and see what we find we find any sludge down in the bottom of the pan sure we're gonna find some sludge hmm yeah I saw a couple chunks fall out yeah I think I think there may have been some water click in here and what I can see being this engine does have an oil pump and no real way to gauge the pressure that's the oil pressure seeing Hill I think it would it's gonna be in the best interests of this thing to go ahead and pull this soft play off and take a look inside there so didn't plan on doing that but I think it's a course of action worth taking at this time all right yeah okay I've loosened up all the twelve of four pan bolts laid a piece of cardboard down cuz this is probably gonna get messy note they have copper sealing washers on the bolts drained out as much oil as I had the patience to wait to drain out so probably gonna be a bit more meaning in there it's already leaking out now I believe that's it just the four yeah not too bad all right take a look in there bring it down and see what I can see it looks pretty nice in there actually check out this legend grip and oh yeah wise choice to remove this pan I would say that's the simple gasket rectangle with four bolt holes let's get a closer look in here you know now that we're this far and I'm tempted to pull the connecting rod cat and take a look at the rod bearings sounds like the oil pumps working or you know what I think that's the fuel pump I'm hearing maybe we'll pull that oil pump off just make sure the check balls and everything are free in it okay here's our oil pump and our will pump push rod I've never taken one of these apart before so kind of experiencing this together little piston so we've got a spring down there that out doesn't really seem more to come out see what I can see down there flashlight look I see one check ball and I imagine there's another one under this fitting captive by that pin what's a custom got two inverted flares and a quarter-inch plate thread and with 1/8 inch pipe thread coming out the side that's a custom fitting if I ever saw one let me soak this see if I can get them check balls freed up without having to remove everything here I think just to test that it's working I'll put this in a little tray of fuel oil and actuate the pump and see if we get flow let's try that okay let's do our simple oil pump test if I didn't mention them already this is the the pressure relief valve it's adjustable of course so we're not going to mess with that if we don't have to plunger here can you see that yeah okay all right say that works very well I think I'll leave it soaking for a little while longer loosen up any sludge that's in there actuated a few more times to flush it out and we're gonna be ready to put it back together and put the base back all right new base gasket here and a new gasket for the oil filler which goes on this side and we'll get this put back together okay we're upright again as you can see we're full of fresh SI 13 on detergent engine oil and it's time to proceed to the electrical end of this little generator before I do that I'd like to speak briefly about safety regarding working on generators or generators or any kind of electrical equipment this this unit here has the potential to kill you electrically if if the right situation that is the wrong situation occurs and you place the output of this generator across your heart it will kill you so bear that in mind when working with any kind of electrical equipment anything above you know what is it I think you know 50 volts AC or 60 or 70 volts DC be very very careful and even even lower voltages can be dangerous it can lead to you know marks and sparks which can blind you and burn you and things like that so really moving along with this one I want to tear into this control box just to verify that there's nothing that's gonna short out go wrong or pose a hazard to myself or anybody else that happens to be happens to work on this generator of the future or anything like that so I'm gonna start off with removing this receptacle here which I don't think is it this is not an original attachment it's just a junction box somebody bolted onto the side here so one thing that you have to realize about these old units is the the neutral it is grounded and if I'm not mistaken well now you you could isolate the neutral from the ground if you if you had a mind to but typically in their setup where the neutral is the grounded conductor and the hot is the ungrounded conductor well this is a a polarized receptacle and I've seen a number of times where people will put the grounded conductor on the line side or that or the ungrounded side and vice versa so we want to take this receptacle off and follow the wires back and see where they are terminated below the control box over below the relay panel here and make sure that the Beha is actually the hot and the neutral is actually the ground at neutral so let me pause you while I disassembled the side panels and take this receptacle off okay here's a look at the whatever you'd like to call this the relay block lift it out take a look underneath dirty but looks pretty serviceable I haven't seen any nicked wires or anything looks like it was a hot connection or anything like that a couple condensers under there we're gonna have to determine what their function is to see if we can eliminate them out of the circuit if you remember the last video the last Onan generator I disconnected all the unnecessary electrolytic capacitor that were in there including one here filter capacitors as they have a tendency to burst and leak after after they've gotten to a certain age and you put you put power to them they will tend to burst and make a big mess anyway like I was saying earlier about you know receptacle polarization and the grounded conductor and the ungrounded conductor certainly glad I did this I marked this is the lead that was going to the hot side of the receptacle marked it with a black line there and sure enough that's the grounded wire the wide they have grounded so that could have been very bad if somebody was to use a you know one of those old radios or coasters where the chassis is is bonded to ground well in that case if somebody would have plugged it into this the chassis would have been at it would have been ungrounded essentially so it would have been at potential above-ground potential and if you were to touch the chassis and your your feet were grounded or your other arm was grounded that that could have that could have really killed somebody be honest with you so I'm gonna have to get that changed out and just remember that for the future everybody so what are we gonna do here we're gonna clean all this up and trace out the wiring for those condensers looks like the one here is across the flicker points which are upfront we learned about those last year with the small I think the PE 88 Onan had a set of flicker points but we'll take a look at them again in a minute and other than that I think I think good so let's continue on okay now that we're in the middle of the electrical assessment or repair for this unit I thought I'd bring a little new technology in here and show everybody the where I find all the manuals for these old Onan generators so here's the I guess there's the site and if this this is like a ham radio operator cite something along those lines but they have also compiled an enormous list of onin operators parts and service manuals for nearly every Odin model Odin genset model that has been produced and you can just see how long this list is and I don't mean just generators I mean transfer switches and switch gear and controls and everything so it's it's quite an amazing thing it's all free of course you just click on it and it opens up so we're let's go up a little bit further oh there we go so that we this is the model 10 LS they've got the stereo some parts manual and then one B spec a through C operator and service manual and 1b ac/dc genset instruction manual so this this unit is the 10 LS model but the engine is a 1b series engine so you can kind of use whatever any of those three manuals to find the information you need and even though they're they are similar these manuals they they each contain a little bit slightly different information so and so you may have to open up one or two manuals of the selves a similar model to find all the information you need so for example here is the wiring schematic for this unit we're gonna go through that in a second but here is parts parts breakdown and these are all scanned images so some may be better than the other that's another reason why you have to kind of search around to the different manuals to figure out which one which one has the best image for you to look at Barth's parts parts parts of prices not that you could call up Cummins today and buy any of those but it might help to search you Bay and things like that you never know what comes up there and there's a Magneto information will pump information governor adjustment then they go through just that the typical things an operator might need to know with the generator set of the top there's installation instructions they go pretty cool to see how they recommended these things be installed back in the 40s and 50s anyway we're interested in the wiring diagram right now now I want to bring this up because there was a lot of controversy in my last other video it seems regarding whether or not these gen sets were positive or negative ground and according to the schematic diagram for this unit and for the other unit the old CKD there the 305 ck they are in fact negative ground and they show two six volt batteries and series for a twelve volt system and sure enough the negative is ground frame ground so these units were all negative ground I'm not aware of any Onan gents that's ever been positive ground that's not to say that it didn't exist but at least these smaller units were all negative ground so let's see what we really want to determine is what the function of the two condensers are this one here and this one here on the DC section this one down here looks like it's across the flicker points just to help quell the arc out there that the flicker points are located under this cover and where are they oh there they are so there's the resistance let me move the image up a little bit so there's the flicker points this terminal here is kind of just a tie point I'll show you that here in a sec there's the ceramic resistor to select the resistance for the field and there's the line going to that one condenser and that goes to ground so it's pretty much just and the flicker points go to ground as well so it's almost serves the function the same function as the ignition condenser just to help prevent arcing at the flicker points and then the other condenser right there put one microfarad that's between the looks like the stop contact which is interesting so we got the start and stop button here this is what's located on the plant this would be these two buttons right here and then yeah that condensers between number two number two and number one number two is stop number one is ground so again I imagine it's just for kind of quenching of the arc that's produced when you release that stop button interesting that there's not one on the start button as well but depending on depending on so the start button only has to deal with that coil right there and start relay so I imagine when you release the start button that coil I don't know but must not pass very much current so they're not worried about the arc that's generated when you break the circuit whereas the stop button let's see where that's doing the stop button is well it's obviously grounding out the magneto but what else is it doing it looks like it looks like it just grounds out the magneto so they wanted an extra an extra capacitance across that and ground then there's a filter filter choke right there which that should be this little guy this little wooden spool all right well we're gonna leave those two condensers in play the other two on the on the AC output I've clipped the clip the leads but I've left lift left the condensers in place they would be let's see they would be this one right here see this brush and this one here those are the two brushes on the slip rings so you've got one that's the grounded or the the neutral slash grounded leg right there that brush if you follow the lead oops sorry kind of bounces over and they call that the white or a grounded conductor that's m2 AC main lines the black conductor m1 is the ungrounded conductor over here which does have a condenser across it going to ground and I believe they're both point one microfarad that could be wrong looks like they've got one up at a point one across this point here this is one of the field brushes and then another one a point five there they don't see any the spec for that one interesting anyway well I think oh that's helpful to some folks out there there's another diagram this for a DC plant yep 32 volt plant pretty helpful flip this back around I think I broke it that's upside-down now some troubleshooting information there all right let me reassemble the electrical end of this and we'll proceed on to the fuel system okay one more thing before we move on got the brushes reinstalled also cleaned up the slip rings in the commutator I just use a piece of this but kind of brownish maroon colored I guess and maroon really scotch-brite and typically on a hard to access unit like this there'll be a spot where you can just about get the scotch brite in there and then I just turned the engine over by hand just one two three four or five six however many time times it takes to get it good a good bright surface on the slip rings and the commutator bars which you can't even really see you commentator bars are kind of hard to access there but get a good bright fish get all the corrosion and dark spots off after you know normal running you will get the kind of the darkened areas on the slip rings and the commutator bars that's fine that's natural you know from deposition from the brushes so perfectly normal also replace the the main AC output wires so these are 14 gauge they're kind of got like a fiberglass cloth braiding insulation so they're going to be perfect reinstall the original receptacle so I'm gonna put the cover back on here and we'll pull the car break all right so the carburetors been removed disassembled it's not that bad on the inside a little bit of dirt and grit I'm going to take the whole thing all the bits and pieces and put them in one of these carburetor dip buckets I know people have some varying opinions on the effectiveness of these things but I find them to be effective so I'm just gonna let that sit for a little while and in the meantime let's continue on and we're going to pull off the clicker point assembly which is also the tappet cover and we're going to check the adjustment of the tappets all right let's go ahead and pull this off of here it was pretty tight and the whole studs coming out okay fair enough sorry about that so this has been off the timer to look at all that silicon Wow geez okay well there's the pushrod to the Flickr points there it's like a phenolic feels like feels almost like the points pushed riding on old brakes angel Wow look at all the silicone oh my gosh okay then let's get you off there and take a peek now that's an interesting setup I said I've not been in one of these engines before so that is pretty interesting let's uh let's rotate it rotate the engine here I might have to look at the manual to figure out this adjustment procedure looks like we got the followers followers they're riding on the cam we've got a boat with a slot cut in that pleat very interesting let me take a look at this and we'll come back in a sec well it looks like I got a bit ahead of myself got the governor linkage cleaned up put back on clicker points are cleaned up reinstalled and adjusted of course the topic covers back on now I just put those tappets off-camera because it would have been kind of a pain kind of bit of kind of a pain to show you exactly what I was doing in there but I've made a little drawing here to try to illustrate how exactly that that adjustment system worked so here's the camshaft and the cam lobe this is the valve stem and this is a like the pivot rod where you saw that 7/16 bolt kind of hanging down below now there's a an arrangement of pieces of stamped steel that are acting as the the tappet or the lever arm to actually raise the valve stem now the I guess the angle between the part that contacts the valve stem and the the part that contacts the cam obviously it's it's an acute angle here if you were to follow that back so as you pull the whole assembly out you decrease the valve clearance because the distance between two points increases so then you just use a feeler gauge between the the lower part and the camshaft and you cinch it down with that one bolt so pretty simple very interesting setup though there's a clearance specs so they weren't out too far they were a little excessive but only maybe by a thousandth or two so I put you on the stand well here's the carburetor I'll show you that that's cleaned up put back together made a cork gasket here the original was a paper gasket but oftentimes I'll use a cork gasket on these because they have a a very common problem where the top cover here will warp it will actually put you up on the tripod so I can broke the two hands here so because the cover only has two screws holding it down the pop metal over time will actually warp and Bend and these corners will get pulled down and you'll end up with a with a large gap in the opposite corners so I spent some time with a file trying to flatten out this top cover and I got it pretty close but then I used a cork gasket to kind of take up the excess clearance that would have been here and here you can see there's still a little bit of clearance there but it's about all I could do with it it should seal pretty well another thing I noticed is a throttle shaft file chef is a bit worn keep going out okay out of the frame there a little sloppy but I'm not gonna worry about that initially we'll see how it runs had to make a new plug down here for the one of the main Jets but let's hang this back on interesting another thing to know it looks like at some point somebody stripped out the quarter inch threads that were in this hole and may they may have done it on here but then it was rethreaded it's it's odd there's a 5/16 thread here and there was just there's no threads and this year and there was just a nut under there so I don't know what the history behind that is but not gonna worry about it right now made a new gasket here just I was gonna make a new piece of fuel line but the inside is pretty clean even though the outsides rusty and ugly but not gonna worry about that now either we just want to see if this thing's gonna run even though we've kind of spent spent a lot of time on this unit already just to see if it's going to run but seems that seems you guys like the longer videos I know when I watch videos on YouTube I prefer the longer longer videos people put up rather than just a short short clip yeah I prefer a longer video myself then yeah 30 short videos well that's just me after we get the carburetor mounted we'll do a little a little coarse valve adjustment or not valve adjustment governor adjustment will get that get that set before we actually go out and try to run the engine the only thing I have to do after the after mounting the carburetor before running it is make a new gasket for the sediment bowl a little bit of a challenge to get that button right there I need a second 7/16 wrench here in movie over let me pause you all go grab a second 7/16 okay so it's a bit of a pain to get second wrench in here [Music] all right like it's bringing over here see if I can show you the basic governor adjustment procedure yeah might be a little bit difficult all right but that's the best angle I'm gonna be able to give you so can you see the relationship here between the throttle shaft on the carburetor and the governor shaft here now this pin runs down the gearcase and the cam gear is sitting through this cover the cam gear has the fly weights for the governor built into it so and those fly weights act on a paddle as it's called under this cover that's attached to this little bra and I should say this rod that runs up through here then at the moment the governor arm is not clamped to that rod so that rod only moves a little bit right there so when the rod when the governor rod is turned fully counter or sorry fully clockwise the paddle is depressing the fly weights on the governor so the fly weights are closed they're not they're not flying out at speed they're they're being pushed closed now at that position you want the the throttle butterfly the throttle shaft and the carburetor to be at wide open throttle which is this position see the spring that's under here is always trying to pull the throttle to wide open so we've got nice free movement no binding there so we'll let that go to wide open throttle and hold the B rod the shaft fully clockwise now at this point I'm gonna release that take my to 7/16 wrenches again and clamp the throttle arm onto that shaft observing the relationship between the shaft and the arm just to make sure that they don't move just slid down there make sure that didn't shift on me okay Titan to us the way okay now like I said in the last onin video I always back the governor tension out quite a ways not quite that for that that's a little too slow a little too loose yeah that's good so that's that should at least get me to a point where it's gonna run it's probably gonna run too slow but that's not a problem I'd have a rather rather have it run too slow and have to speed it up then run too quick and over speed or in this case go over voltage as well because on these these old self-excited generators or self regulated generators or inherently regulated generators whatever you want to call them voltage is directly related to engine speed so real quick here's a top view of what I was doing there this shaft has a screw slot in it and the governor lever itself pinches to grip that shaft so we got two adjustments here we've got your speed adjustment there's a spring down there good to see that and then you got your sensitivity adjustment which is this screw right here now backing that in or threading it in or back and get out changes the geometry of the governor and it changes the affective tension of that spring which controls the sensitivity of the governor we'll get into that a little bit later once we get that thing running so the only thing you got to do now is put the air filter back on sediment bowl pop a muffler on it and we'll get this thing around alright it's time for the first official start got a muffler on there got the fuel hooked up got a tank tank down on the ground there got a starting battery behind the unit this this fuel pump actually is a priming lever which is a nice feature see that there's our fuels now I'm curious to see where this thing starts leaking fuel at I'm sure it's gonna seep a little bit not the end of the world you get a meter put in here okay you know what I see one thing I missed cotter pin for the throttle linkage yes sir okay here we go first start see which does [Music] I don't know if I meant to this it here has the first isotope see right there below the muffler that aluminum's if there's a coiled spring in there with a clockwork spring as the exhaust eats up there's a staff that runs down this fight that little lever your feet chittering around down there that's a manual override of the truth they pay to run pretty pretty poorly like this until that tail token stop and if you'd like a bypass that for the static action you know what think of my feelings also a little bit I'm very a little bit right here I need to loosen it up yet Oh my good either out let's peculiar rent what went wrong that fuel it's cut fuel let's see if it'll restart battery start definitely rattle around a bit yeah big cylinder making poke down alright let's run it down so let's conclude this video we started out wanting to know what the condition of this generator was was it worth putting any serious time and effort into now we spent we spent a solid day here I don't know how long this video is gonna be but to do everything you saw took me the entire day there's a couple things with the carburetor you didn't get to get to see I jumped around a little bit but I tried to get tried to get you a shot of everything so the answer is yes I'd say that this generator would be worth either fully restoring or just doing a more thorough mechanical restoration get this throttle shaft tighten back out bushings in it tighten this the governor linkage up get a paint job and then that I can't really thing away from us and eats that's great compression seems to run under load pretty well but it was pretty good investment for 50 bucks good little generator well I hope you found this video useful at least those of you that you know are thinking about starting little projects like this think about getting into the Hobby so if you did enjoy it please consider supporting this channel and myself and my projects on patreon I just open the patreon account I would certainly appreciate any donations they would all go to the shop here especially getting toward getting the cat done get little projects like this done so thank you for watching and have a good night

Channel: SmallEngineMechanic

Views: 102,684

Keywords: Antique, Old, Vintage, Engine, Motor, Generator, Power Plant, Onan, Kohler, Cummins, CAT, Caterpillar, Briggs and Stratton, Tecumseh, Repair, Restore, Rebuild, History, Technology, Electricity, Alternator, Diesel, Gas, Gasoline, Advice, How To, SmallEngineMechanic, International

Id: 5jDMLS1G5n4

Length: 84min 54sec (5094 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 19 2020

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[u/tcpip4lyfe]

Going down the SmallEngineMechanic playlist this evening.