Ryobi Generator Down on Power - Horsepower?

hey guys welcome back so today i brought home this 5500 watt ryobi generator this one was a craigslist find for only 50. and according to the listing the engine runs in the generator makes power but there's a problem this generator is only producing 120 volts and no longer makes 240 so either the stator is bad or maybe there's a wiring issue i'm not sure which but that's what we're gonna find out as far as the engine goes i'm told it runs it has compression but i was not able to start it when purchasing this generator so there's definitely issues there i'm sure they're fuel related the air box cover is missing as well as the filter and the recoil has some issues as well so let me get set up a little bit better i want to start by looking at the electrical to see what we're dealing with i'm going to use the 240 volt outlet for this test because both leg 1 and leg 2 are located right here and it's pretty easy to identify them the ground is the one that has this 90 degree bend and opposite you have the neutral and then leg one and leg two you want to put one probe in the neutral and the other on leg one and in this case i have point four ohms point three point four and that's a good reading usually i see between 0.3 and 0.5 ohms on a generator like this let's check leg 2. 0.4 0.3 so that's good leg 1 and leg 2 both between 0.3 and 0.4 ohms so there's no red flag here i mean from this test it actually looks like the 240 volt outlet should work but to be sure we really want to test the quality of the insulation and in order to do that with this multimeter you really have to go down to the powerhead and isolate the coils and then you can test them all individually and make sure nothing is connected to ground or to adjacent coils so i'm going to pull the end cover off the power head and we'll do some more tests down there this stator looks brand new the copper color is good the lacing is intact none of it's broken and there's no evidence of overheating or anything burning so visually there's no red flags here this stator only has three wires coming out of it we have one white and two black some have four but in this case they've actually doubled up on the neutral so there's no way to isolate leg one from leg two so we can't check for an insulation failure between those two main coils but we can still check for a failure to ground first we have to isolate it from ground and you'll notice this neutral has a jumper that connects over to ground so we need to break that connection and then just test from any one of these to ground and make sure there is no connection there and attach one lead to ground and another to leg one and leg two and we get nothing so there's a whole lot of nothing going on here i'm starting to wonder if this generator actually does make 240 volts so i'm just going to reconnect this wire or re-secure the avr we'll get it outside like this see if i can't get it started and test the output all right let's see if i can get this engine going but first take a quick peek at the oil plenty of oil does need to be changed but we'll make it earn its change foreign all right i got nothing from that engine so either there's no spark or maybe that cord is too short but i actually think i missed something here this is an on off switch as well as a choke and a fuel valve it does everything in one makes it easy to start but there's also a switch on the side which is set to off you know why there's two ignition switches i don't know but if either one of those is off it's not going to start so let's try it again [Applause] what can i say this might be a quick video all the outlets work even the 240 volt outlet i got 236 volts so as far as i can tell there is no problem with the power head in the engine not too bad either now that both ignition switches are set to on it started first pull and sounded pretty good not perfect so it does need a little bit of work but all things considered i think things are going pretty well so let's get this back inside we'll make everything right and bring it back out for a load test it didn't take long for this one to earn its oil change i'm going to start with the recoil there's nothing actually wrong with it other than there's not enough spring tension to pull the cord all the way in and the cord is really short if i pull this out this reel is only gonna rotate once twice and that's it you know this should be able to hold five or six turns of cord so i'm just gonna cut this out and put some new stuff in so that's four turns five six that should be enough you you when putting that recoil on i noticed a piece of pvc here used as a fuel line and that is not a good idea pvc melts at a lower temperature and the fuel actually makes this line petrified and this is a petrified line if i try to bend it it'll break and the fuel will just spill out so that has to be replaced there's another piece up here on the tank vent so we'll replace that as well i think the bigger issue here is the tank and the design of the tank if you look at it there is a valley going down the center and the fuel cap is in that valley so if you leave this generator outside in the rain that will actually fill up and the cap will be below the water and water will go into the tank i've seen that on a few of these and this one's no exception there is rust and it's not a total loss this can be cleaned up you know i don't think there's any water in there now but that's definitely an issue so we'll get the fuel out of the tank we'll get some evaporation there let it soak for a few days and deal with those lines thankfully there's not a lot of fuel in there i think the best way to go about this is to tilt the generator so that the right side is down and that should bring the fuel away from the fuel outlet i'll just cut the line there we'll get a good flexible line on there drop it into a bottle and drain that tank [Music] so [Music] [Music] a lot more fuel in there than i thought anyway it's not done draining yet i'm just going to keep going no water so far so i don't think there's any issues there once all the fuel's out i'm just going to mop the tank dry the best i can and then i'll put this evaporator in it let it sit for a few days or a few weeks however long it takes to get that rust cleaned up i didn't believe the seller when he said this was five years old but it says right there june 30th 2016. so this is actually about five and a half years old which i guess makes sense i mean it is cleaning up pretty well there isn't really much aluminum oxide or rust on this machine just a lot of dirt and there are some little patches of rust no doubt from sitting outside for five years it's right at the 24 hour mark and you can see there is a noticeable improvement in the amount of rust on the bottom of the tank but it does need some more time so i'll give it another 24 hours and check back well that tank is soaking i'm just going to turn my attention to the engine although it did start pretty well once that switch was turned on it didn't sound right you know i'm not sure how well that came across in the video but it almost sounded like the choke was on like it was running rich so potentially there is an issue with that carburetor i am pretty sure the person i bought this from said he had it serviced at one point most likely after the water got in the tank so i don't know if that's the original carburetor potentially it's jetted wrong i'm not sure but before doing that i think i'm going to check the valves when pulling the engine over i noticed when it hits the compression stroke it pulls through it pretty easily and that could be a function of the compression release or it could be a symptom of tight valves which might cause the engine to sound the same so let's get the valve cover off we'll check the clearance and then move on to that carburetor so i'm just going to rotate the engine until the intake valve is open and then check the exhaust and there's absolutely no clearance on that exhaust valve so that that is probably the source of the leak down issue and probably the run issue let's advance the engine so that the exhaust is open and the intake has clearance so i'll check the clearance on both the exhaust is definitely an issue i think i loosened the stud on the rocker so i'm going to take the rocker off just make sure that that stud is torqued properly so ryobi uses a ratto engine and according to that manual six thousands on the intake and eight on the exhaust yeah that's good it's between a seven and an eight so let's check the intake it's much better compression six fits pretty good and the five is a little loose so that's good i'm just going to rotate the engine double check the exhaust double check the intake but i think we're fine now yeah those are good that's perfect there's almost zero leak down at this point so yeah that valve that exhaust valve was definitely an issue it was letting a lot of compression out it wasn't letting it all out that's why this engine could run but the way that it was this engine would have been down significantly on horsepower and i reread the craigslist description and i think i misinterpreted what it said it didn't say that it didn't make 240 volts it said it could only power 110 volts so based on what i saw on that valve i'm guessing what he meant to say was when he put a heavy 240 volt load on the generator the engine would fall on its face and stall because the way that that valve was i don't see that it could have powered a heavy load anyway as far as the carp goes i think i'm going to leave it alone for now i want to run it like this with the valve adjusted but i am going to pull the drain bolt out of the carb i want to see what comes out and just check the condition of that bolt if it's rusted or varnished then i should pull that carb but if it comes out clean i will test it like this yeah i should pull that carb a lot of debris came out no water but the bolt also has a bit of rust on it you so yeah that that has to be replaced that is a gasket that goes on this nut to keep it from leaking so that is trash as far as the bowl goes not too bad there's some debris some discoloration but no no rust so that's good and inside the carb also looks pretty good this is the idle set screw when putting it back together you don't need to drive it through much most generators do not idle and if you drive it all the way in it might actually cause the engine to run fast really the only useful thing it's doing here is holding down this pilot jet and the main jets in there see if we can get that out nope gonna leave that alone uh it can still be cleaned i think the only downside is i can't get to the emulsion tube but after running it through the ultrasonic i'll try it again maybe it'll decide to come out and this carb does have an adjustable jet looks like someone broke it off so hopefully it's in a good spot nope i'm gonna try to steal that seal from this bowl nut or actually the whole thing but they are different this one has a hole through the center and some pickups on the side so i do need to stick with this but hopefully i can steal this washer off of here and it's most likely the same size without ripping it there we go make sure that seats in there there is a rubber o-ring on that jet and sometimes it doesn't this jet doesn't pop all the way down and if it's not all the way down it's going to suck a lot of air it'd be a vacuum leak and it's not going to run very well uh gonna put the brakes on that carb installation i don't have enough new fuel line to replace the old ones and they really all need to be replaced they're not in very good shape and unfortunately it's too late to do that tonight so i'll have to hold off for the morning which is fine you know that evaporates needs more time to work and the person i bought this from actually reached out to me and said he found the rest of the air box so i'm going to pick up the rest of the air box pick up the fuel line and then we can complete the work that's needed down there and for now i think the only thing left that i can do is just clean up some of that dirt so courtesy of amazon i've got the lines i need to plumb the carburetor and fix this tank vent issue but first i'm going to drain that evaporous it's actually been in there for a week and i saw a lot of progress the first 24 to 48 hours but not so much since so i think it's done doing what it can and it did clean up quite a bit from where it was so i'm going to fish that out whatever that is drain the evaporate kind of mop up the tank i might run a little water through it and i want to put gas in it right away that gas will be a bit contaminated but i'd rather do that than let it flash rust and i'll just run the gas through the system use that to kind of clean up the tank and get the rest of the water and evaporates down i double checked on the evaporate website and for fuel tanks like this they say don't use water something like acetone or gasoline is recommended so i'm going to put about half a gallon maybe a gallon of gas in there kind of swish it around and just drain it out and should be good so evaporate is water based and you can see the fuel is hazy so i'm going to set this aside i think if i give it some time that'll come out of solution and then i can pour off the good gas and reuse it and just recycle what's left and there's a better look at the end result some of you may have noticed i stuck with the paper filter that was on there this one's new my preference on a gravity-based system is to use one like this it is less restrictive and works better when you have less pressure this is really meant for a fuel pump type setup but in this case i don't have much of a choice these do not fit the 3 16 line and usually the only things that use line of this diameter are honda clones which this is and those usually have a filter in the tank with the fuel petcock screws on but not this one this one's a little bit different so i have to stick with the same style that was on there you interesting the tank is actually a quarter inch and the rest of the system is 3 16. so let me grab a quarter inch line it should connect just fine to that fuel filter and convert it down i stopped by the cellars today and picked up the air box parts he found which consists of the cover and the air filter but i'm still missing the knob to secure the cover and i believe there should be a metal plate down in there so i'm going to check my stash and see if i have either of those parts that might be it i think that'll do it you yeah just needed a bit of time that fuel cleared up and you can just see some evaporate there in the bottom gonna get the engine started give it a few minutes to warm up and once it does i'm gonna apply a load i've got four space heaters hooked up the two on the left are on leg one the two on the right leg two i'll turn on the space heaters on either end that'll be 3000 watts and if that does fine i'm going to turn the two in the middle each on medium which will be another thousand watts each bringing this pretty close to the max of 5500 watts i forgot the switch on the side all right not too bad the engine started right up and it handled the 5000 watts without issue holding at 60 hertz so i'd say the engine issues are pretty much sorted out but i'm not completely happy with the voltage without a load it was at 119 volts and loaded to 5000 watts it dropped to about 115 so i'm going to bump that voltage up a little bit the no load voltage and set it to about 122 123 and i think that'll solve that issue it looks like there's a little bit of glue on the potentiometer so they don't want you adjusting it but if you scrape that off there is an adjustment there and if i give it about a half turn clockwise it should bring the voltage up a couple volts all right let's try it like that [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that was better but not quite as good as i'd like to see without a load it's about two and a half volts above 120 and under a full load it's about three volts below so i was kind of aiming for the middle meaning not too high on one side or the other and that's pretty much where it's at so i think i'm going to leave good enough alone now this one definitely was not what i expected i really thought there was going to be a stator problem and it turned out it was just valves and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff so pretty easy fix you know the one good thing i will say about ryobi is that they support their stuff and the parts are pretty cheap so going into this i knew a new stator for this only costs 135 dollars and even the tank as badly designed as it is they do sell replacement tanks for only eighty dollars and most generators that use clone engines like this they either don't supply parts or the parts are way too expensive so you know from that point of view i do recommend ryobi if you're looking for something affordable that you can get parts for when it eventually breaks now if you want something that's going to last longer i would recommend a honda but for the price i'd say this generator is one of the best values out there anyway i think i'm done so i hope this video helps someone thanks for watching

Channel: James Condon

Views: 171,850

Keywords: 120 volts only, 390cc, 420cc, AVR, Bad Stator, Carburetor Clean, Down on Horse Power, Evaporust, Fixed, GX340, GX390, Generator, High Leakdown, Honda Clone, Honda, Horsepower, HP, Insulation Test, Kill A Watt, Load Test, Ohms Test, PVC Fuel Line, Petrified Fuel Line, Rusted Fuel Tank, Rusted Gas Tank, Ryobi, Small Engine, Starter Cord Replacement, Starter Recoil Repair, Tight Valves, Troubleshooting, Ultrasonic Cleaner, Valve Clearance, Valve Lash, Voltage Adjustment

Id: qmhku7nYPBk

Length: 57min 23sec (3443 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 17 2022