Honda EX1000 - Running Wide Open / No Speed Control

hey guys welcome back so today we're working on this Honda ex1000 uh this one comes to me from Indiana a subscriber actually emailed me a few months back saying he has this nice ex1000 that runs and makes power but the governor has no control of the engine speed so you know he said when he got it it would only idle he found someone had attached a spring holding the throttle in the idle position so when he removed that spring it just ran at wide open throttle so yeah we have issues with the governor either this is going to be an easy fix or we're going to have to tear the whole thing down so that's what we're going to find out so let me get you set up a little bit better and get going on this let's see if we have any oil uh we shouldn't you know ask Kevin to drain it before shipping it CU a lot of times these end up sideways in the mail and yeah we have no oil in there so let's top it off it should take 430 mlit perfect yeah before trying to start this I want to get the airbox removed so I can get a better look at the governor system and just see if there's any red flags and first look everything seems fine you know we have the governor spring right there connected to the governor arm and then at the top of the governor arm we have the rod which connects over to the throttle plate so that is all correct now the governor has really two main functions the first one is this spring down here this applies a fixed Force to the governor arm holding it in wide open throttle and and it's not until the engine starts where the second component which is inside the engine starts spinning that has a set of fly weights and as the engine spins faster it starts pushing against that spring and eventually the engine runs so fast that it builds enough Force to counteract that fixed spring tension so if we're stuck in wide open throttle then either the throttle plate is stuck which it's not or the internal Governor isn't working properly or maybe just maybe we're miscalibrated down here so yeah anyway like this there is no tension on that spring so this really shouldn't do anything but idle and you can see right here an extra spring has been added to make sure that we stay in the idle position which is where the throttle is right now so it is safe to start like this so let's add a little bit of fuel we'll pull it over and see what we get all right we're pretty much ready to go I've got the fuel valve and the ignition turned on and also plugged in the kilowatt so we can see the output once the machine is running now this doesn't have an AVR so when idling the voltage and the Hertz will be low which is fine you know I just want to make sure that we do have output and for this start I'm going to have you guys in the back to keep an eye on the governor arm and the governor Rod now I'm going to manually kind of move that throttle plate we'll get it up to 60 HZ we'll double check the output and then I'm going to exceed that speed and my hope is I feel the governor inside the engine building Force trying to close or counteract what I'm doing with that throttle plate so yeah let's get it started and see what happens that was a very good test it gave me a lot of useful information I guess first off the engine sounds great and we're making power you know no surprise the carb needs to be cleaned I couldn't throttle it up without adding a bit of Choke but more importantly the Governor inside the engine I think it's working because when I manually opened up the throttle plate you know I could absolutely feel that Governor pushing back so I would say it is not broken or if it is it's only partially broken so I think the next move here is to get rid of this extra spring we will restart the engine we'll increase this spring tension and see if we can't get up to 61 1 12 Hertz without the engine speed running away [Music] looks like the spring goes way over here and it's hooked on right on the edge of this heat shield so we'll just release that and should be able to just fish it out I'm also going to get this airbox backing out of the [Music] way you don't need to to make the adjustment we need to make but I'm just getting it out of the way so we can get a better look at everything going on behind here so now that the spring is removed the throttle arm is free to go in whatever position it wants you know there is no spring tension here holding it and wide open throttle so ideally when I start the engine the governor inside should build up some force and move this arm into the idle position since there's no spring tension down here but I can tell already we're going to have a problem because when moving towards idle right there there's a lot of resistance and I can't actually move it to the idle set screw unless I apply quite a bit more Force so yeah something is not right and I can say with certainty that we're going to have a problem here so I'm not going to run it for very long but I do want to see exactly what it's doing so I've also rigged up a tachometer you know ideally if things were tuned right we'd be just over 3700 RPMs so let's start it real quick and see how bad it is all right let's give this a try I'm going to leave the choke on longer than I normally do that'll actually help keep the engine speed under control and assuming I can get it off and in this case off is about halfway since we're running lean you know we'll double check the speed and start to bring that spring tension up once we reach 3700 RPM I'm going to put a 750 wat load on and see if the governor adds more throttle keeping the engine speed steady huh that was really odd you know I started to increase the spring tension and maybe Midway through the throttle suddenly slammed to the idle position which is where it should have been now it's moving with absolutely no obstruction so that is very suspicious and this spring although I maxed out this screw right here it was not able to get the engine up to speed so yeah this spring I'm actually not sure if it's the right one you I noticed when looking over here it looks a little bit deformed or maybe someone cut it and did something maybe they shouldn't have so I think I have an extra one of these uh left over from another project so let me check real quick and if I do I'll swap these Springs out and we'll try it again yeah I think it's this this one I replaced it because it was a little bit stretched out but yeah let's give this one a try this is actually a discontinued part uh almost impossible to get so if this solves our problem with getting up to speed I think we'll stick with that now it still doesn't explain why this was hanging up anyway let's swap the spring we'll try this again going to start by taking the tension off this spring and I'm pretty sure I've come across this before where I just couldn't get enough spring tension to get it up to speed so one option is to actually replace this screw with a longer one so that way when you drive it in you can actually push this further getting more spring tension so potentially I might do that if this other spring doesn't work out I just took a look at my other ex1000 that was the one I made a video on quite a while ago that one was sent through the mail as well from Brenda and the governor spring on that machine is actually in this orientation so I'm wondering if it was the spring itself potentially somehow hanging up on this down here I'm not sure I guess the other possibility is that this Governor arm might be too far in rubbing against the body or maybe we had some binding up here by the governor Rod anyway let's get this other spring on and restart the engine we'll tension it see if we can get up to speed [Applause] I well surprisingly the governor seems to be working fine so yeah I'm not really sure what to think about this one I didn't really fix anything anyway the stretched out spring did a better job I was able to get the engine speed up to just over 3700 RPM or 62.2 HZ had no issues responding to a 750 WT load so yeah things are looking pretty good uh that said though I did have to Max this screw out again just to get to the correct speed so ideally there'd be a little bit more adjustment here so I might swap that out in a minute with a slightly longer screw also this spring although it's working fine you know this one does look to be in better condition so I'm thinking once we get the longer screw on there we'll try the original spring again see if we have any better results anyway you know I pulled out uh Brenda's machine the ex1000 that we fixed a while ago just taking a look at the setup to see if there was anything different that I could notice and one thing stood out if you look here at the governor shaft that goes into the engine behind it we have a retaining pin so that does two things I guess first it prevents the shaft from falling into the engine if this Governor arm is removed the second thing it does is actually pulls the whole shaft assembly a little bit further out and prevents it from rubbing against the block so yeah when looking over here that clip is missing completely and actually this shaft was all the way against the block I just pulled it out so you can see there's a lot of play and just being able to move that much you're kind of changing the position of where the paddle is against the governor inside the engine so having that misaligned could definitely cause an issue so I think to fix that you know we need to find a pin that's going to fit on there so yeah let me look around a minute see if I can find something to fix that issue yeah I don't really have the right pin what we need does look something like that just a lot smaller anyway I don't want to force the wrong part in there I did take a look online a second ago and that pin is still available it's under $2 so I think rather than trying to force the wrong part in there or just continuing to run it without the PIN Al together you know I'm just going to order the right part and we'll get that fixed properly anyway anyway before swapping out that screw and putting the original spring back on I want to pull the carburetor off I just want to double check between the carb and the body of the engine and make sure that that obstruction I was feeling before wasn't potentially the gasket hanging up that throttle plate for there's nothing wrong with this gasket it's installed properly there's no obstruction here to the throttle plate and even if there was an obstruction this throttle plate is so far down the throat of the carb that there is no way that could hang up even if the gasket was destructing the flow of air and fuel so that is not an issue but I did find an issue and I think this is the Smoking Gun here when removing the carburetor it was very hard to get this Governor Rod off the governor arm and that's not too unusual on these machines it is difficult to do but this one was especially difficult and now that it's off you know if you look at that Governor Rod you can see that there's a lot of bends here you know I didn't remember there being so many bends on the last couple of work done so luckily I do still have brendas here so I took a quick look at how it's supposed to be and let me show you what I found it's kind of hard to get in here but hopefully you can see it uh this is the governor rod on the machine that Brenda gave to the channel and you can see that Rod is completely straight the only bends we have are the ones that lock it onto the governor arm and the throttle plate nothing in between like that other Governor Rod so what I'm going to do is actually just Loosely reinstall the carb with the bent arm you know I'm going to purposely not install it quite right and see if we can replicate that issue where it's binding yep so no issues there let's try putting in a little bit further CU where it was it would not have would not have stayed on the arm so if I push it in even further there we go still operates fine let's adjust that back a little and there it is it's binding so yeah I think we got pretty lucky on this one it's a very minor issue I was kind of half expecting to have to tear the engine down instead we just need to straighten this Governor Rod out and I think we'll be in business here that'll do this is the tricky part on this carb is the anti- surge spring got to get it in first I guess you don't have to but it tends to work out better cuz now you can kind of pull the car back stretch out the spring a bit until that Governor Rod gets to the right spot which is right there perfect I came up with one here on the bottom that's just a little bit longer than the OEM one so let's get this one installed with the original spring and see if we can get up to speed that all right let's give this a try now there is no spring tension so once the engine starts it will idle again we'll have to adjust the tensioner to bring the engine hopefully up to about 3700 RPM with this original spring now that we have a longer throw on that screw beautiful the Old Spring has no issues now getting the engine up to speed and we're not maxed out yet so there is plenty of a adjustment left you know as far as this repair goes I think this was ultimately the issue just a bent Governor Rod which is good because initially it kind of fixed itself and that was not sitting well with me and now we know 100% that that should not reoccur so I am going to order up this clip you know I don't think that had anything to do with the issue but it is something that should be on there because if you ever remove the governor arm and you don't have that clip this shaft can and will fall right into the engine and then you have a bit of work on your hands to fix that issue anyway let's get the heat shield back on and then I'm going to place the order and when we get the part we need we'll finish this up and bring it outside and get this line off for now it's actually too short I think this is a vent most likely or potentially an overflow and the bll drain should have a similar line which is missing but I think I can just use this for now for the Bold drain and actually this appears to be the right length for the Bold drain so maybe that's where it was originally anyway my hope is to just get the bowl off and take a quick look in here I have a feeling the carb isn't actually dirty you know I know these tend to run quite lean without the airbox installed so if things look good in here I'm just going to put the airbox back on and see if that corrects the lean condition that that bolt looks nice and clean and yeah I can I can tell already this carb is in very good condition tiny bit of debris down there but I don't think the lean condition is a carb problem you know that said since we're in here we'll just clean the bowl real quick I'm going to run a torch tip cleaner just through the main jet make sure there's nothing blocking it put it back together throw the airbox on and see how it runs make sure you line this bowl up so you can get a screwdriver on that drain valve so this is an important step on a foam filter especially if you're going to be in Dusty conditions cuz these filters will not catch the dust without a bit of oil and it also helps the generator run a little bit richer and in this case since we're a little lean you know this is only going to help let's try that out that's all it was just the airbox so with it installed I was able to turn the choke off right away you know initially the engine was a little bit unsteady uh but it did work itself out within 5 or 10 seconds I was able to turn a 750 watt load on without issue and when that load was turned off the engine continued to run nice and smooth so for once I don't think I need to clean a carburetor anyway there's not a whole lot more to do other than wait for that clip so I'm going to pause the video here when I get it I'll turn it back on we'll get this airbox back off and we actually need to p pull the governor arm off most likely to get that installed and then we'll have to recalibrate the governor system the new clip showed up today only $149 from Parts tree and it actually got here pretty quick I also ordered a washer which goes kind of on the shaft between the clip and the block and it's kind of hard to tell if we're missing that as well so for another $149 I just got both parts anyway the airbox is back off carbs ready to come out so we'll get that out I think we'll get this spring off probably take the tension off and then we'll focus in on the issue at hand I will say this does make me nervous you know without the clip if this shaft were to fall into the engine would make a pretty bad day so I'm using these to lock it in place so it cannot fall in the engine then we just loosen up this nut and this arm should slide right off for and yeah looks like we're missing the washer so that would explain why there's so much play so if we put the washer in then put the clip on it's going to lock this in so that there's very little play here so let me get both of those out of the bag we'll get them installed all right we'll start with the washer and for some reason it's not going on all the way looks like it's getting hung up so yeah that that is not a good thing I'm not sure why it's doing that and yeah I can tell if I push this in it's actually putting a lot of force down on the governor shaft it might interfere with its operation so yeah let me take a look maybe I have a washer that's a better fit than the OEM one which is now stuck I'm coming up kind of empty as far as a better fit for that machine I do have another washer that would pass but it's pretty sloppy so I'm thinking if I grind one side just a little bit flat then that'll kind of key it in and I think it'll work the way that it [Music] should yeah that's more than [Music] enough yeah that is a heck of a lot better so I'm not sure why the OEM washer didn't fit right but I think that kind of solves the problem so let's get or try to get this pin on and we're good it's interesting too now that the pin's installed it's kind of setting a limit you know as far as how much that shaft is allowed to rotate without it we could have just turned it indefinitely which is not a good thing cuz that paddle would eventually hit something that it probably shouldn't so let's let's carefully get this arm back on going to leave it Loose for now we have to recalibrate things which we can't do until the carburetor is reinstalled actually before moving on there's something I kind of glossed over and that was the play in the shaft you know that was concerning to me cuz without the washer and without the PIN you know that shaft moved quite a bit and of course this plate has to be here so even if we're calibrated right meaning we're resting right on it you know if that shaft is allowed to move too far in One Direction you could end up in a situation where it just falls out of position so now that we have the pin and the washer that orientation has been restored so that should not be a concern anymore anyway before moving on there's one thing I need to do a subscriber actually emailed me today saying he has an ex1000 that runs and makes power but there's two parts he needs and he can't find them the first one is the governor spring so I do have an extra granted it's stretched out a little but as we saw earlier it works fine so I'm going to send him that but the other part he needs is the governor rod and that is also discontinued and not available so what I'm going to do is just take some measurements we'll make up a new Rod based on that and we'll test it out you know if it works we'll send them both all right before we get the rest of this machine together I just want to take a second and kind of explain how the governor works you know ultimately you're trying to control the speed of the engine and that is done by positioning the throttle plate where you need it you know wide open throttle or in this case that would be idle so on a generator it's important to maintain 60 HZ or 50 HZ depending upon you know your power grid and you want that to be automatic and that's where a mechanical Governor comes into play now this one it is from a Briggs but the concept is exactly the same you have a governor arm which connects over via this Governor Rod to the carburetor and that moves back and forth and changes the position of that throttle plate now I guess the big question in most people's mind is well what controls this you know how does it know where to move and there's really two components involved in that you have the spring which is what we saw on this machine it's external to the engine and pretty much every Small Engine like this is set up the same you know the exact shape of the arm or the spring might be different but the spring always pulls the throttle plate into wide open throttle so if this was the only component the engine would just run at wide open throttle and nothing would slow it down so you do need another piece to counteract this fixed spring Force you need something that can turn or rotate the governor arm the other way to close that throttle plate and that's where this Governor shaft comes into play this goes into the engine and on the other end we have this plate that plate is resting right up against here and this spins with the engine you know we have fly weights right here when they fly out it pushes this plunger up just a tiny bit and the force at which it pushes up is based on the engine speed so outside of the engine you have this spring which is applying a fixed Force holding the throttle plate wide open when the engine speeds up enough to overcome that Force the governor fly weights are able to counteract that spring and rotate the arm closing the throttle plate so that and a nutshell is how this works it's a balancing act between this spring and the force being generated by this component now the one thing we have to do since we loosened the bolt you know that allows this shaft to rotate separately from this arm so the calibration might be off so that when we're in wide open throttle according to the carburetor this plate has to be at the same time right up against here so that when we reach the critical speed this can slow the engine down if the carburetor is at wide open throttle but this plate is somewhere else then it may not be able to slow the engine down because it can't reach or maybe it can reach but it's not where it should be so it might only close the throttle a little bit but not actually enough so yeah that calibration is very important you it's not something to take lightly because if you get it wrong the engine's just going to run at wide open throttle because this is the only part that's going to be in play so yeah let's make that adjustment then we'll test it out I'm just going to Snug these up for now and this is holding the carb now exactly where it needs to be so I'm going to add the governor Springs right now this is just flopping around you know technically you don't have to you could hold this in open throttle and then make the adjustment and tighten down but if you add the spring and add a little bit of tension it's just going to hold it in the right spot which is wide open throttle and while it's in that position you make the adjustments you need down there and then the calibration should be complete so before you do anything just make sure you know where wide open throttle is versus idle you know in this case we have the idle set screw and if I move the arm to the left it goes against that idle set screw and we also have the spring and it's job is to pull the arm to wide open throttle So based on that we know to the right or clockwise is wide open throttle so now that you know it's clockwise you want to hold that arm to the right in the wide open throttle position and rotate the shaft also clockwise until it stops which is right there and ideally you would hold the arm and the shaft while tightening that nut but I only have two hands so we're gonna have to risk it let's just make sure that's still all the way to the right seems to be all right let's try that out beautiful the governor has full control of the engine speed so the adjustment we made here was correct and at this point we could put the airbox back on we are pretty much done uh that said though I do want to make that Governor Rod or at least attempt to make one uh for bill you know that subscriber in Ontario who needs one for his machine so let's get this off we'll take a closer look at that rod and try to replicate that all right let's see if we can't replicate this Governor Rod now ideally I would use a wire that is the same thickness this measures in at one 1.4 mm and the only wires I have that are close are a coat hanger which is actually a little bit too big at 1.8 and we have these oversized paper clips that measure in at 08 so this is too small that's too big so neither one's ideal but the small one should still be able to control the engine you know in worst case at least bill will have a template of how long it needs to be so he can go out and purchase a wire that is 1.4 mm in diameter and make one for himself so I'm going to start just by straightening this out and we'll bring it over to the Vie and just tap on it with the hammer make this as straight as possible and then we'll try to make one of these all right I just cut that wire down so now we have two chances to make the perfect Governor rod and I've already made a few and one of them's really close so I'm only going to do this one more time on camera just so you can see how it's done you know potentially this one might turn out better in which case we'll use it otherwise you know I'll probably use the one I made earlier that is a near Perfect Fit anyway we're going to start by using this Oregon tool it is for making Z bends in throttle cables so the first end that we're bending it's pretty easy there's really nothing to measure we're just making a z Bend you know the best we can which you want that to be at a 90 so we're not quite there yet and yep not quite but we're getting close yeah it's close enough I think and the next Bend you want to keep that in the hole but raise it up go through there and then bend up now this wire because it's so small it's not fitting very well so that second Bend isn't going to come out very good if I don't hold that wire in there so I'm just going to grab a pair of pliers Maybe some vice grips will hold that in there nice and tight and make the second Bend and there we go one nice Z Bend now the real trick here is making the second Bend IN exactly the right spot and in the right direction you can see it's different on each side so I'm going to start by marking on this wire where I want the second Bend to be with a sharpie yeah so right there now this isn't in exact science it's actually kind of hard with this tool because the first Bend you make is not the critical Bend so this remaining wire here has to be preut to the right size so that when you get to the second Bend it's right where the Sharpie Mark is and that yeah that is kind of a guessing game you know I've already made a few of these and what I've been able to determine is about5 to 0.55 in from The Mark is what we want so yeah let's do 053 and we'll cut that wire and then we'll bend it up see how close we are okay so now we have to make sure we Bend this the right way cu the second Bend not the same direction as the first so the first Bend actually needs to be down and we want to make sure that the bend is 90° out from this Bend so that it ends up looking like that yeah and I kind of messed that up not quite 90° out from that so let me just try to straighten that to where it needs to be and hopefully we can continue with this yeah I think that's going to do it and same thing for this one I'm going to use the vice grips to hold that while we make the final Bend yeah that that might be usable let's see I think this one will do actually it's very close the bends aren't quite a match like that one should be bent up a little more we are pretty close and pretty sure this one is a closer match to any of the others I made earlier I mean it is almost identical to the original so let's just cut off the excess on each end and we'll fit this one to the machine see if it can run it okay seems to be working and this spring right here is critical I don't really talk about it but when you're connecting the governor Rod you know each side has play in the system and by play I mean you know this Rod is actually smaller than the hole so if I just hold the throttle still and I move things around you can see that is moving quite a bit now this is undersized so it's quite a bit worse than it would be with the OEM Governor Rod but even with the OEM there is play in the system and what that spring does is it holds these two pieces together taking out that slop and you know if you didn't have that spring that slop would actually cause the engine to Surge even though there may not be anything wrong with the carbo Ator anyway I'm going to tighten this down we'll start it up and see if we can control the engine speed using a paperclip and the answer would be yes you can use a paperclip as a substitute for a governor Rod now do I recommend it no probably not but if you don't have access to the part because it's discontinued then sometimes you have to make do with what you have so I'm going to pause the video here I'm going to put the original Governor Rod back on I'll send that one up to bill you know we'll get everything back together and I'll meet you outside for the final test all right we are pretty much ready to go I've got a space heater plugged in and set to 750 watts and together with these two lights that'll bring us right up to the rated load of 900 volt amps So the plan is to get the engine started while it's warming up we'll double check the power quality and then we'll bring on a load of 750 watts see how it does if everything works well then we'll bring it up to the max of 900 voltage s so far so good uh the THD starting off pretty high at about 26 to 27% and the sine wave yeah it's pretty bad looks like the THD is remaining pretty stable at about 26% THD and the sine wave still not great but it has cleaned up quite a bit compared to what it was [Music] before looks like things are pretty stable we're right at 26% THD so really no change from 750 watts to a full load and the side wave looks about the [Music] same overall this is running quite well you know it started first pull and had no issues handling its rated load now as far as the power quality goes you I was expecting it to be bad and that's exactly what we saw the THD was at 26% and the sine wave didn't look great but that is by Design and unfortunately there is really not anything we can do about that so I was going to call this one done and then I realized an oversight in my part the pilot light it is burned out and it's actually like that on my other machine as well so I had purchased some replacement bulbs and just never got around to installing them so I say we get this back inside we'll swap that light out real quick we'll actually do it on both machines and call it done so the actual Act of swapping that light bulb out is pretty easy the issue is getting to it this control panel needs to come off there's two bolts down here we have two under this cover we also need to remove the side panel on each side and once we've done that there are a couple wire harnesses connecting this over to the engine and the generator and then there's some linkage connecting over to the fuel tank valve that's held on by a 35-year-old plastic clip so yeah not for the faint of heart to change a light bulb you know that said though it should be fairly straightforward so let's get the Fasteners out we'll get the light bulbs swapped out and hopefully this is the right part otherwise I will have wasted a bunch of time and that right there is what we're after so this looks like a rubber bushing so I'm guessing we can just gently pull it out and yeah that is the bulb right there there we go all right before we just put in a new bulb let's check the old one and make sure it's actually bad so I'm going to check the resistance of the bulb it should be open circuit like it is right now and yeah there's no connection there so the filament is broken and replacing the bulb theoretically should fix it I shouldn't say theoretically we kind of just proved that it is the bulb I guess there could be something else wrong but I kind of doubt it so let's just take one of these out and we'll do the same test just make sure that the bulb is good you know I hate to install it put the whole machine back together just to find out we have a bad light bulb and yeah we're at about 9.5 ohms so the bulb is good let's install it for for for let's start it real quick and hopefully we see that pilot light come on perfect that light came right on so this machine is now 100% And I'd say we got pretty lucky on it you know I went into it kind of assuming the worst and thankfully although there was governor damage it was external to the engine and not something we had to tear the engine apart for so in the end we have a good running machine anyway to get that light swapped out it wasn't as bad as I made it out to be probably took about 5 or 10 minutes and I do need to do the same to this machine but I'm not going to torture you by showing you the same thing twice so I think at this point I'm going to call it done so I hope this video help someone thanks for watching w

Channel: James Condon

Views: 103,637

Keywords: Alternator, Bent Governor Rod, Bogs Under Load, Damaged Governor Rod, Engine Speed, Fixed, Generator, Governor Linkage Binding, Governor Reset, Governor Spring, Governor, Hertz, How To, How-To, Load Test, Pilot Light, RPM, Repair, Running Fast, Set Engine Speed, Small Engine, Tachometer, Troubleshooting, Wide Open, Z Bender

Id: S0WdwOyVfxo

Length: 71min 39sec (4299 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 29 2024