I don't understand how anyone can give this guy a dislike, he is a genuine restorer no BS here, and he talks you thru every step of the process, he seldoms damages anything in the stripdown, so skilled and careful. I learn something with every viewing. Gotta love it. Keep it coming Mustie!
Thanks for the fine videos, I'm a mechanic who works on high end German junk and really enjoy sitting back and watching your videos. I've begun purchasing broken generators in the hopes of flipping them. My latest 'deal' has been a̶ ̶b̶i̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶f̶u̶n̶ interesting. It's an old Northern Tool generator with a nice Honda GX270 and 27 hours on it. Bought it for $125 knowing that it generates no juice. Engine fires up happily on the first pull, electric starter battery dead. Took her home and tried the old drill trick, no go. Crack open the alternator and see fried windings. I'm this far into it and plan to replace my cheaper home genny with it so I spend many phone calls and dollars with Northern Tool before I finally get the correct alternator. Pop it on and whoa- she makes electricity! Plug in a heater to load test and the engine backfires through the exhaust and dies. Great. Yank the float bowl and find crustaceans and what not in there. $25 Amazon Chinacarb shows up but won't fit. Order a real Honda carb and install- fires right up on the first pull! Great! The idle control system works, jiggavolts are showing on the meter, let's load her up. Put a space heater on it and I'm so happy to report that it dies and backfires again. Now I'm miffed. I'm reading about folks with the same problems online, finally see folks recommend a new spark plug. I've seen stranger things with plugs on cars. For example, on newer Mercedes Benz engines you MUST use the correct plug and torque to exactly 23 Newton Meters- if you don't, the electrode will not line up properly with the injector and you'll burn valves. So I waltz out to pull the plug and then I realize that it's only screwed in 1/3 of the way...... I grab my trusty plug socket and the thing will not screw in any more. Some dingbat has cross threaded it quite well. Today my expanding reverse plug tap arrived and I was very pleased to rethread the plug bore from the inside out. Tomorrow Amazon should deliver my new plug and I hope to find that I have 'only' $800 in a ten year old $2000 genny.... Thanks again for the videos, keep 'em up!
Always relevant! Definitely like your approach to trouble shooting. learning a lot about the intricacies of small engines by watching the master work. Your stash is always amazing.
I have been laid up since my heart surgery and your videos have really helped me relieve some of the boredom of sitting around the house "healing". Thank you for what you do and your videos!
Hello Mustie: My 2 cents on this $5 find & repair. I too like to tinker, with whatever. Most ppl buy generators & over tax them. They want or need 7k watt capacity & buy 5k. I would check the bridge rectifier diodes to see if they are blown. I have just viewed several of your videos, I greatly appreciate & like your logical & systematic approach. Thank you.
Mustie,,,,, I am almost without words!!! You sir are the body and brains that made America great!!! I would have laid the replacement coil down on the bench and continued to look for one that fit perfectly!!! My mind would have told me the resistance and level of spark in the replacement coil would have made it a non working part!!! When I saw it work after you sanded it,,,, I screamed “DAMMIT MAN “ !!!!! You are so impressive that I don’t know how you beat people away from your house to ever get a video made!!! Let me tell you something,,,, if I did not live in Alabama, you would have to get a damn restraining order on me to keep me from hanging around YOU!!!!! GREAT 👍 JOB,,,,, AGAIN !!!!!
I watched many of your videos I think what you do is amazing thank you so much for sharing all your tips me being a dealership technician I can appreciate your approach to a lot of different projects, keep doing what you do
Love the videos. I have had a couple 1980s vintage magnetron ignition engines that had rusted magnets and rusted lamanints on the coils with no spark. wire wheeled them and reset the air gap and had great spark afterwards.
I like your videos and your troubleshooting style, you have very relaxing voice, I like that too, never get tiered of watching you working, very interesting to me because I understand and I know well about your specialty, thanks for informative and entertaining videos.
Really enjoy your methodical approach and low key delivery. I was just thinking yesterday that I have a chainsaw, lawn mower, and two generators that I need to see if I can get to run again. Wish I had your knowledge (and spare parts inventory)! Thanks for sharing the info.
What I have found when the windings on the field (outter) windings overload is that the point of break often occurs at the crimp connector where the windings come together. It is easy to cut the remaining winding away from the crimp and then sand the ends down and re-connect the windings using another buchanan, though I generally drop some solder into that after I crimp it. The same I have seen on auto alternators as well. In the latter though one of the diodes to the rectifier bridge associated to the winding that burned is always bad as well.
Another great how to video. Thanks for the informative showing. For your stiff back, I use a good quality tennis ball to massage my back, shoulders, etc... Place the ball between you and a wall...and move around, find the knots and massage them out.... Worth a try, Chris Gatineau, Quebec, Canada
Just a note on the coils that Briggs used, especially the ones you have for this engine. You can take the laminations out of the coil and swap them so you don't have to grind them. I did it on one a while back, I'm pretty sure they're just friction fit together. If you look at the side that the spark plug wire comes out, there's an angled piece, it separates there and at the top where the paper gap is.
I'm with you on the rust on the flywheel as being an urban myth at preventing spark. I've swapped coils a few times from the small to the large and vise versa on the Briggs because that's all I had; it works great. The motor is going to be a taper shaft for sure. I generally search for a generator with a thrown rod to swap the motor onto.
Hahaha here Mustie1 is talking about it likely being a tapered shaft and my first thought was yep I bet it is because I remember seeing a video from sixtyfiveford on this exact thing from a little over a year ago. Then the first comment listed in the comment section was from who else. :-) Yes I realize I am replying to a 2 year old comment but I had to say something. ;-)
good call with finding a replacement like that. Everyone's happy - you get to complete your generator for cheap, they get to sell the 'scrap' that's useless to them, and there's less energy and resources wasted in manufacturing a replacement
I had a 6.75 Briggs that didn't have spark. Took the coil off and cleaned the posts where it screws in and that fixed the spark.... So I'd argue against that urban legend
Thank You for the learning curve i have a generator sitting but doesn't start I am going to now start the process of elimination fiding what and why it will not run.
Motors are electric. So, terminology is critical, esp. for the newbies here. Please be precise, with terminology. If it uses gasoline to run, I would call it an engine. Otherwise, your video is educational and detailed. No loud music is an added benefit! Thank you for this very detailed video! Camera work is very good!
Good job mustie1, you also can try a drill in your flash field test. You need to plug it in the receptacle keep the drill in fwd position and spin the chuck in reverse while holding down the trigger with your hand , that in turn will induce voltage to the windings. That's how the rotor windings are flashed. It worked for me in the past. Good luck bud and hope u feel better.
Hey Mustie, The generator head is worth about $5 is scrap value.... U learned a lot from this project and so did I on troubleshooting a generator!,,, Thanks, $5 well spent.
canadacatalyst I started once I began watching his vids and I've done repaired a push mower that i bought for 5 bucks all I had to do was replace the dead man's cable and the gas cap and a good carb cleaning she is currently used to mow my front lawn
I had a similar situation, I got a push mower for free that the owner thought seized. Mower had no spark plug in it and would spin 3/4 of a turn then stop. Pulled the head and there was a dead wasp nest inside that the piston was ramming in to. Cleaned it out, put head back on, filled the gas tank and it ran great.
Mustie I have to tell you I am in no way any kind of motor mechanic guy but watching you for the last little while bring stuff back to life is just incredible to me,totally amazed,i love to see the older stuff brought back to life,love your videos,and such a cool bus in the background,can I borrow it,hahaha,just kidding,regards from Montreal..P.S. I did subscribe thanks
Worth every penny, lucky you had a coil that you could mod to work :-D Engine sounds happy as larry :-). That alternator should of had resistance on the rotor rings, and the stator, they really killed it fully :-(. Excite the alternator LOL, i also laughed :-D.
When the coils on the rotor gets power, the rotor becomes a magnet. This field "crosses" the coils on the outside part and creates power. Short description :) Nice video
Had a Homelite generator given to me, all that needed to be done was the Reset button pushed in to flip the breaker back, love Briggs engines, they are usually hard to kill. The older ones anyway, not sure about the newer ones.
I really identify with the guy getting over. Heart surgery I went thru the same 3 yrs ago hope you're doing good get well friend continue to enjoy mustie like I and all do
Very good try! When you saw the price of the circuit board, I'm sure you said "oh no way, I'm done it's finished". But just had to appease your curiosity to see if the elec motor was good or not. All in all, no loss since you got a good low hour motor out of it for cheap! BTW, hate throwing that frame out. Perhaps keep the engine in it and hook up a water pump? Never know when you need a water pump?
A lot of " no power " issues can be fixed very quickly. With the gen running, plug in an electric drill and spin the shaft quickly by hand. The voltage from the drill will "excite" the windings and start the charge cycle. They lose their "juice" if they sit for too long. Done many this way and 95% come back.
@@mustie1 hey I bet you never checked the compasitor cap in the generator normally it's right on the Opposit side of the engine were the wires comes out of the alternator part. Sorry I'm just now seeing this that might have fixed your issue right away
I was looking for replacement wheels for a lawnmower once and my neighbour had an old Lawnboy mower that didn't work. He gave it to me for the wheels. So I said to myself why didn't this mower work. Found out it had no spark. Took it apart and noticed heavy rust on the magnets so I sanded them clean. Put everything back together and hooked the plug wire back up to the plug and voila - spark. A few pulls on the cord and it fired up perfectly. Neighbour was not too pleased when he saw me mowing my lawn with his reject mower. So urban myth it was not.
Mustie, I have a generator that quit putting out power, and after a long story oftrying to get it fixed, someone I was talking to about it said something that made a light bulb go on in my head, and that was to check the brushes in in the gen head. I did and found one of the brushes bad. Bought a new brush assembly and it is still working today.
I’d like too see ya explain more about how a gasoline engine operates. How the valves work basic engine workings. I’ve learned a lot about carburetors, enough repair my cub cadet lawn tractor.
Always check the armature on generators that have been left sitting for a while. They will oxidize and the brushes won't contact enough to generate any current. Clean the rotor contact area with scotch-brite pads.
Good call to just part it out. It wasn't a high end generator to begin with. Also the bearing on the power head end cap are famous for going bad and tearing up the plastic housing when they fail. Very tough to finding the correct housings now as they pretty much all fail. Take Care.
Hey! if it's a T3 taper like your talking about! Wheel chair hubs and pulley sets fit em perfect! as long you dont need clutch your good to go then lol!
I didn't notice if you addressed if the generator head was actually being driven by the engine. I'm sure it would make a bunch of racket with a broken coupling. and with no resistance on the windings sure sounds like it was toasted. doesn't stop us from hoping for simple stuff though. great video!
Yes rust on a fly wheel will also prevent the coil from making spark! It's not a MYTH! I've repaired plenty of small engines with no spark. Took a wire brush and fine grit sand paper and cleaned the rust off.
On that homelite gen, I think I must have been the one in there, I'm too old to remember but, that is always the way that i finish the jobs that I start.
Wow! This is the first video that I have seen of yours that you were not 100% successful - even after doing a lot of electrical troubleshooting. Thanks for trying.
That "oil presure switch" is actually checking oil level, i believe, on this small machine (no pump right?)... Anyway, thats actually called a "Murphy switch"... Especially important for equipment Left unattended for long periods of time, like big oilfield gas compressors that can go quite a while without visitors at times... wouldn't be pretty if they lost oil but kept running. Really interesting part is, the big ones that use huge cat drive engines even change their own oil, regardless if anyone's there or not, every so many revolutions of the crank, a 500gal empty tank piped into the drain & a mostly full;) 500gal tank of Delo 400 on tap for the big cat to change its own oil without automated valves & pumps. Pretty cool system, but not full proof since after all, it's still a machine. so the Murphy switch is still S.O.P. in the industry, & as you can see, is spreading into civilian markets too.... probably combat the "turn the key & go" mentality people have these days instead of maintaining their equipment.
for future reference i know this is a old video. on these self exciting generators i seen several cases where if they set for a long time the fields have just all residual magnetism. what ive done to fix this is remove the cover and find the field leads and just apply 12 volts to each set for a short time. and then put it back together and its fixed. only ones ive seen with actual problems is in cases where someone has bypassed the circuit breaker. or have a broke lead which was probably caused from vibration which only requires a little solder to fix
i just had a mower that the flywheel and coil where rusted up the spark was very weak. i wire wheeled all of it and now its perfect...this has never worded for me before lol but dont be afraid to try it
Cleaning the rust off the magneto would make it spark but not in all cases but it always worth a shot either use sandpaper or what I like to use is a bench grinder with a wire wheel on it mustie1
On the generator specs, there should be ohms readings for the various windings and I think I would have checked those out to make sure the windings were all conducting at their proper specifications. Very rare that a generator that comes out of a factory and is not tested to ensure it is working. That being said, if it is the board, one can rig a basic power board and use an SCR motor control circuit to operate the throttle solenoid. Then you would have a good generator. Mainly due to the fact that Homelite had issues for many years of their generators failing due to issues with the voltage regulator. So, found that on eBay, one can get the regulator for around 15-20 bucks new. That would make it a cheap and easy fix and if the failed regulator fried the board, then again, a makeshift power board would be a way to go. Working units that are not as clean sell for around $150. So, something to consider.
Yes rust on the fly will and the magneto if it builds up enough can disrupt magnetic continuity to the point where it either doesn't produce spark fast enough, not enough power, or not at all but typically that only comes from engines that of been set outside for a long period time but it's always a good thing to try sanding the magnets, if you don't I can change your gap settings when you put the magneto back on.
The simple easy peasy electricity explanation. The d.c. power to the rotor winding makes it into an electromagnet with a North pole and a South pole. Now when the rotor is spinned by the motor, the magnetic flux lines made by the rotor winding cut the outside stator windings, and these generate the a.c. output.
Was the electric side motor even turning? I had one like that that quit generating and it ended up being a keyway between the motor and the generator had sheared.
FYI for you that rust on the flywheel magnets and the fins on the coil will cause no spark. How many times I had no spark and cleaning them off brought it back. Just use some sand paper and take the rust off.
Agreed with the rust thing. Rust isn't a magic substance that blocks magnetic fields. If it ever has better spark after getting the rust off, it's because the person doing it bumped or changed something else.
As long as the alternator windings aren't terribly roasted...it's resurrectable. Just gota dig inmand inspect. If the alt-windings are burnt...it's a coin toss: how much time do you want to spend rewinding... Not bad troubleshooting logic. I have to give ya a thumbs up!
Many years ago I did have luck with sanding off the rust on the flywheel. What I now think is that some other consequence happened at the same time. When you remove the coil and the flywheel is rusty, the bolts and plug being removed caused some crusty connection or spark kill was changed with it's removal and reconnection thus returning the magneto to a working condition. Maybe even jiggling the coil while inop could reconnect something amiss. If so it will be a lingering problem and it seems I had a return to inop later.
I use a business card to adjust for clearance of the magneto. A favorite saying at work, "That's what I do!" Maybe a bad AVR regulator at the bottom of the stator or windings?
