Honda Powermate Generator - No Compression?

hey guys welcome back so today i brought home this powermate generator it is rated at 7 000 continuous watts and powered by a honda gx390 this one didn't cost too much it was only 150 and for good reason you know according to the seller it has low compression and most likely needs a valve replaced but i don't think that's the case i mean i've pulled the engine over feels like we have good compression so i think most likely we're dealing with a fuel problem or potentially a spark issue so i'm going to get you set up a little bit better i'm going to check the oil real quick and then we'll just try starting this thing see if we get any signs of life yeah it's a bit dirty but it's plenty to test with okay both the fuel valve and the ignition are turned on let's see if this thing will start and we get nothing so i want to pop the air box off spray a little starting fluid in there but before i do that i want to drain the bowl i want to make sure there's no water in the system the fuel color is not too bad and it smells the way it's supposed to but if you look closely there is a line running across the bottom and that is water and i think that is enough water to have been blocking the main jet and once you get that much water inside the bowl it's not going to start or show any signs of life so now that that's out let's pull it over again and see if we get a different result right well i was hoping this would be a really easy one and it hopefully is an easy one but i still haven't heard that engine run so i'm gonna pop the air box off and give it a squirt of starting fluid and hopefully this thing comes to life nice i can't believe this thing runs i was expecting to do a little bit of engine work but as you can see this does not have a bad valve it just has a dirty carb so you know the interesting thing is the seller did have a friend look at it who said uh most likely a valve i think needs to be replaced but yeah i'd say far from it the engine sounds good i assume the power works we just don't have fuel and the gas has water in it so i'm gonna drain the gas out get the carb cleaned up and we'll bring it outside for a real test [Applause] [Music] you so nice we've got jelly or salmon eggs this happens usually when you get too much fuel stabilizer carburetor itself though looks quite clean so yeah not a big deal to clean this one a main jet is not clogged that's pretty much it there's not too much to these carburetors the jets are not clogged the emulsion tube also looks fine it was really just this gel down in the bowl preventing the fuel flow through the main jet so i'm gonna take a minute just go through everything with a wire probably spray a bit of carburetor cleaner on the top to just get this heavy stuff off and then put it in the ultrasonic for a bit in case you're wondering this is what i use to clean the smallest bits on the carburetor you know i do have torch tip cleaners carburetor cleaner and i do have micro drill bits but i find this works best so you know i lost my favorite wire so it's time to harvest a new one i was actually wrong the emulsion tube does have clogged holes you can see right there that one's clogged it cleaned up pretty well not that the carb was that bad but the outside is now spotless as well so the bowl also cleaned up well i mean there is some corrosion on the bottom due to the water but it is nice and clean so we'll get this back together see how it does and don't drive this in too far this is the idle set screw generators usually don't idle you just want to get it in far enough so that it just comes through and it's holding down the pilot jet okay we'll test this real quick okay good that should hold so while the carburetor was cleaning i spent a few minutes just cleaned up the blower housing some of these rails and took a first pass at cleaning up that tank and it's cleaning up really well there's really no rust on here to speak of it was just all dirt do so this part of the air box is a bit concerning these pieces here especially down near the bottom look to be melted and the only thing i can think of that would cause that is backfiring through the intake but when you turn this around you know the intake's up here and you can see this area actually is a lot better than down here so not really sure what would cause that down there as opposed to up here especially since heat rises so we'll have to keep an eye on that once we get this going just make sure we have no backfiring uh the filter itself the air filter shows no signs of issues at all so yeah that one might be a bit of a mystery hopefully it's not popping or backfiring out of the intake you yeah one last thing i want to do before filling this up with gas uh the fuel valve on the bottom of the tank it does work but it's nearly seized it's very hard to turn and there is a rubber bushing holding that valve into the bottom of the tank so if you turn it too hard you'll end up ripping it out and then you'll have eight gallons of gas pouring onto the engine so i think i'm going to leave that one alone just leave it in the on position we'll put an inline one right there so despite the way it looks out right now this is actually one of the nicest days that i've seen in weeks i have about four generators four separate videos to finish up so i plan on doing that right now anyway it is snowing a bit i'm just gonna see if this thing starts makes power hopefully finish this thing up today uh [Music] uh foreign we've got power that's good well this one's a bit odd it did take a while to start i'd say at least 10 pulls and it finally did with the choke off but as you could see it was running lean and it got worse under load so i had to choke it a bit and things settled down so it's definitely a fuel issue but the good news is the engine sounds good you know it's making power i do need to dig into that car again i must have uh missed something well i guess before pulling that carb off again i do want to get the oil changed while it's hot the oil looked pretty uh pretty old it's overdue this oil may have never been changed [Applause] got the carb off again i've gone through it i can't find anything wrong with this carburetor there is no blockages i guess the only thing actually there's a couple things that concern me first not a hundred percent sure this is an oem carb i mean it looks like it but usually it would say japan right under the name and it doesn't so potentially this is a clone i also sprayed through everything with carb cleaner and the pilot circuit looking to see how it was spraying coming out these holes on the side and for the most part it was working fine except for the one right up front here which is the one that's probably most critical when the generator is not under load it potentially is blocked i'm not sure but that is not removable so i'm going to soak it a bit longer in the ultrasonic we'll try it again and if that doesn't work i might have to get a new carb okay let's see if cleaning it again has made any difference so well it was a lot easier to start but the surging is still there so you know i'm not really seeing anything more i can do with this carburetor i think the issue lies behind this needle here which can't be removed now while i was in there i did replace the gasket between the carburetor and the insulator i inspected the insulator as well i don't don't think we have any cracks i also increased the size of the pilot jet by about 2 000 of an inch so yeah kind of not sure where to go on this carb i do have another carb like this it is from a honda clone it's missing a lot of parts but potentially if i use that carburetor body and move the parts from this one over that one could be viable so i'll give that a quick try otherwise looks like we might be getting a new carb so the carburetor on the right is the other one i have which is a clone it should fit and surprisingly the clone says that it's well standard of japan not that it's made in japan anyway this one a few things need to be adjusted it's expecting a fuel solenoid which actually this generator could use every time i've shut it down it has popped out of the exhaust but there's no wiring to accommodate that so this bowl needs to be swapped out or potentially just this nut also i think i need a new needle in this one so we'll move that stuff over we'll give it another try i guess another thing worth noting this also has an adjustable jet like the original but somebody and i don't think it was me tried cutting it off and it just popped it off altogether so it's no longer adjustable and that's what i commonly see if you try to cut the tab off usually this whole thing pops right off anyway hopefully this one's a little better yeah and this carb i've never actually tried it came with that tahoe generator i fixed probably about a year ago this one was actually leaking through the fuel solenoid also the needle wasn't seating properly so yeah hopefully the needle from the honda can seat properly and hopefully this bowl will fit over there as well yeah swap the main jets as well all right let's try this clone frankenstein carve out and see if it does any better that would be a no yeah not gonna happen with this carb okay new carbs here and it's already been installed now before ordering the carb i did run a bunch of more checks you know i wanted to make sure that it couldn't be anything else i pulled the plug made sure it was the right plug properly gapped and it was put a new plug in anyway still surging i pulled off the insulator inspected that no issues there and replaced the gaskets on either side of the insulator just to make sure still surges and then i inspected all the governor linkage making sure that there was an excessive play that the big spring there in the back was installed in the right hole which it is and then i reset the governor just to make sure and still surges so i ordered the new carb and then it occurred to me after i didn't actually check this vacuum line which goes to the insulator and powers the servo so potentially there is a vacuum leak there but let's get this outside we'll start it up see where we're at and then go from there [Applause] so new carb did not solve the problem i did pinch off that line no change and i sprayed carp spray around the insulator and no changes whatsoever so i don't think we're dealing with a vacuum leak i held the governor arm at one point just to see if it was the governor itself causing the slowdown but that wasn't the case i could feel that the engine was actually slowing down and it wasn't something caused by the governor so pretty much out of ideas here other than leaving the choke on which doesn't sound like a good idea but i am gonna swap out the pilot jet put the one i drilled out into this new carb and try it again okay it's been done i actually pulled the main jet as well as the pilot jet both of these are the original ones that came with this carb the unaltered so i can always go back to them if i need to but the jet the previously drilled out jet i put back in there i actually drilled it out a little bit further so now it's around 18 thousandths of an inch maybe closer to 20. and the main jet is actually from the clone carb that didn't start this machine at all i compared the main jet sizes and the hole on this one was just a touch smaller than the one on the clone so now we have a clone main jet a drilled out pilot jet and yeah let's see if it's uh any better okay well that was a million times better you know it now starts first pull can turn the choke off right away and the engine doesn't hunt and surge and even after loading it to close to 4000 watts things kept going just fine so should have followed my gut instinct in the beginning when i drilled that pilot jet out and just kept going cause that's all it was the jetting was off and you may have noticed this time too when i shut the engine down this was the first time it didn't pop out of the exhaust so that pupping was just a symptom of the bigger issue which was the lean condition anyway it's running good now i hope this video helps someone thanks for watching

Channel: James Condon

Views: 109,222

Keywords: Afterfire, Backfire, Compression, Drill Jet, Drill Jet Out, Drill, Fix, Fixed, Generator, GX390, GX390 VXG GCBCT-1031372, Governor Reset, Honda, Hunting, Intake Leak, Jet, Jetting, No Compression, Powermate, Running Lean, Small Engine, Surging, Troubleshooting, Valve, Will Not Start, PM0497000, 16100-Z5T-U86

Id: I-YbOyHzJHM

Length: 38min 46sec (2326 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 11 2021