It's Electrifying.

[cheesy]

Just being a smartass.

Truth be told, my kids took the grandsons to see my folks this week in northern Wisconsin. They hadn't yet met Owen and they can't get enough of Eli. I guess fun was had by all.

Dad sent down his old Generac(here's the 'Electrifying' part)generator for me to take a look at. This is one that survived the rollover accident Mom and Dad were in several years ago.

He said he was using it and it just quit running. He checked and it only had 20 psi of compression. He'd taken it to a couple of local repair shops and was told "because it was so old, it couldn't be fixed". Twice. No one even took the time to look at it.

So, it gets to me. I only have a 'three handed compression gauge' (I need to do something about that), so I do the 'Thumb over the spark plug hole test'. Yup, very little compression. Poured some Sea Foam in the cylinder and tried the thumb test again. No better but I now have Sea Foam leaking out the carb. Intake valve stuck open? Put the borescope down the hole and see lots of carbon deposits but the cylinder looks pretty good. It's a flat head Robin engine, so I can't see the valves. Next step is to pull the head.

Yuck! Wish I'd had my camera. Besides the heavy carbon deposits, there was some fibrous brown stuff, like little hair balls, in the deposits. Some of those settled on the intake valve seat. There was the compression loss. Fifteen minutes worth of scraping and wiring brushing had everything cleaned up.

I put the head back on, installed the minimum of stuff to try starting it, and pulled the rope. It started on the third pull. And smoked bad. Guess I also got some Sea Foam down the exhaust and into the muffler because it cleared up in about ten minutes. No skeeters for awhile.

I call my Dad and tell him it's running. He's happy and want's to know what I did. I tell him and he says "Well, you got a generator. You were gonna end up with it anyway. Next time you come up, though, bring it with so we can show those clowns at the shop what little it took to fix it." That's my Dad, a vindictive old cuss.

So, I have a free generator that is in need of a wheel kit. It's a heavy bugger. I haven't tossed the dual rear wheels from the mini bike yet so I think I have a head start on that.

[Weldangrind]

Nicely done! I figured you were going to say it had a burned exhaust valve. Congrats on the new generator.

[cheesy]

Been a busy day keeping Eli entertained. Somehow we traded Eli's dog for Eli. I've been rode hard and put away wet. I am now, apparently, a jumping off base for Rescue Bots.

Anyway, I managed a pic of the generator this morning before Eli woke up.


Finding info online was a bit frustrating but I did find that it was also sold through Sears as a Kenmore Portable Generator and downloaded the manual from them. Sears also has the air filter available, which this needs. Also learned that it could be had with either a B&S or Kawasaki engines. So, Kaw, not Robin.

[cheesy]

Mystery solved as to the fuzzy brown hairballs. Disintegrated foam air filter.

[kohburn]

disintegrated air filter in a generator... and fuzzy hair balls in the valves? were there any mouse bones in there too?

[cheesy]

I think we'd have smelled that cooking.

[Weldangrind]

Are the two 120VAC outlets on different legs of the transformer? If so, you could make an adapter to power 220VAC devices.

[FastDoc]

Great story.

Shame on the lazy shops for not thinking this through and looking into it. You had the diagnosis in less than an hour with no special tools. Very gratifying I'm sure. This offsets some of the 'Dana Frustration' from your other thread.

[Azhule]

Next time, save some $$ and use these better/less expensive products :

Can use either Neutra 131 or PB'laster (or Kreen, Kroil from Kano Labs) when you put stuff in the spark plug hole for an "upper cylinder/ring cleaning/decarb solution"... I have only seen Sea Foam break off big chunks of carbon, rarely has it "safely liquefied it" like the other products I listed

You will notice a darker burning smoke when you start the engine too, this is actually Carbon being expelled from the engine... white smoke shows you get from Sea Foam is usually just that... a smoke show

Sea Foam is good for cleaning out "gummed up carbs/injectors" and your wallet... little else from my experience

[cheesy]

Originally Posted by Azhule

Next time, save some $$ and use these better/less expensive products :

Can use either Neutra 131 or PB'laster (or Kreen, Kroil from Kano Labs) when you put stuff in the spark plug hole for an "upper cylinder/ring cleaning/decarb solution"... I have only seen Sea Foam break off big chunks of carbon, rarely has it "safely liquefied it" like the other products I listed

You will notice a darker burning smoke when you start the engine too, this is actually Carbon being expelled from the engine... white smoke shows you get from Sea Foam is usually just that... a smoke show

Sea Foam is good for cleaning out "gummed up carbs/injectors" and your wallet... little else from my experience

Good suggestions, Azhule. I just grabbed the Sea Foam because it was the first thing I saw within reach.

[2LZ]

We used to run ATF down the carbs of munged up motors to clean them out. They better be running already though, not like your generator. The smoke cloud will stop traffic. Quite impressive.

[cheesy]

ATF has many uses but I wasn't aware of this one. I have used it as a degreaser in the field.

[cheesy]

Originally Posted by Weldangrind

Are the two 120VAC outlets on different legs of the transformer? If so, you could make an adapter to power 220VAC devices.

Don't know but worth checking into.

[Weldangrind]

Just fire it up and place one probe of a multimeter into each hot leg. If you something in the neighbourhood of 220VAC, you have a winner.

[cheesy]

Will do.

After I go to the store for a battery for the multimeter.