Two Junkyard Champion Generators (Part 2) - Scrap Metal? 

Thanks Erik

I’ll add a big “DITTO” to Eric’s statement.... always learn something NEW on your projects Jim!

@@firedmyboss yes!

me. too@@firedmyboss

Also, low pressure air can be useful for larger dents with less of a crease to them. (low pressure being the operative word here, above a few psi they can deform... Actually, Isle of Man TT racers & other endurance riders have been known to "blow the tank" in order to gain a little extra capacity/cut out a pit stop on a "stock" bike)

Since these dents are in the top of the tank I would make holes and pop the dents out with a screw and slide hammer. Fill with filled epoxy and sand it smooth.

Great video James ,what did you do with the extra wire that wasn't availible on the replacement suspect but ok AVR did you work out what it did ? Everything see s to be working ok a great machine with low hours and plenty of grunt at 6kw.

Another way is to use a jetwasher to hydroform it.

Thanks! Hopefully things do not freeze up again any time soon.

@@jcondon1 The governor just signed some legislation to help prevent that from happening again, frankly I think it is a bunch of gesturing and lip flapping contrived to make it look like our government is doing something but in effect isn't going to make a bit of difference because as you and I know, it is hard to control mother nature or the free electrical market. Our latest issues now are outages due to this heat wave (power has already gone out for half an hour one night) and ERCOT (manages our electric grid here in Texas) is asking people to cut back on their consumption. I think when it comes to Texas, backup generators are going to become the rule and not the exception.

I also bought TWO champion generators this week (11500/9200 ea), and I watched these videos to learn how to work on them. Your videos are very informative, and now I'm subscribed to all of your content. Thanks for helping us out!

Yes, me too!

@@TurpInTexas A good friend of mine is a "survivalist". Knows how to survive in the woods. That's not likely to be his problem at this point. He doesn't own a generator or know how to change a light switch. I say to get your priorities straight. Things can get mighty terrible really fast for you just sitting in your living room. This info could be a live saver.

You can some times use air pressure to straighten out a bent tank.

There was no carb to clean - it came missing from the scrap yard. He installed a brand new clone carb.

@@throwbo I stand corrected.

Thanks. I like this model a lot. Would be even better with the missing remote start and servo controlled choke.

Call Champion and get those parts. You could get the frame and tank all at once for fairly cheap. And yes they do have them in stock in the USA :)

Whatever you do never bend any tabs to give the engine more rpm's.

@@elcomandante9299 - Thanks!

Yes, did not want that to stay.

off

I hope that, once we change the economic/philosophical system to one of co-operative care, repair, renewal and reuse (rathen trash and debt) become the norm of sanity.

Thanks. I thought about it, but just envisioned the metal breaking. Did not want to push my luck.

Thanks

Try working outside in this triple digit heat in the south.

Thanks

I've broken a few with a torch wrench.

Thanks 👍

I like the way these run. Seem like a good design.

If they were owned by a business then sometimes it's cheaper to scrap and claim for new ones than it is to get them repaired.

@@Oldgit51 that’s true, actually that reminds me of an event that I witnessed back in the 80’s when I worked at our local housing authority. We had a mower that was always giving us trouble so the supervisor had one of the guys run over the deck with the truck to cause irreparable damage to it. He took pictures and claimed it as a construction accident so the insurance company would pay out for a nice new Bobcat machine. Maybe that’s how one of these generators got all dented up!

It is called write offs in the commercial world. Take a loss to save on taxes. Win Win

@@Oldgit51 Box Store returns written off at cost by manufacturer or their distributor. Store policy probably to strip off loose parts (to discourage writing off good units. The carbs, and batteries probably "disappeared" and everything else just was dumped into the dumpster.

Thanks

Thanks 👍

I was curious if the battery had charging voltage like the first generator. Figured the black and red were for charging the battery.

I agree. They were both in new condition (except for the damage which most likely happened at the scrap yard).

ME TOO! Good stuff James!

Thanks Paul. The power head is my strength. Getting up to speed on the engines recently.

Thank you!

Thanks

That's just the way of the world, I guess. It's the same over here, and the usual reasons given are that it would cost more in labour than it would in parts to repair - Cheaper to replace as a whole, and to add insult to injury, you can't generally buy these returned machines, so you can't 'have a go' at fixing them yourself though there are companies who can buy them, refurbish them and sell on as refurbished/new other.

99% of generators this size have not over-voltage protection.

@@jcondon1 that's what I was thinking. You confirmed it. Champion seems to be the only one with volt guard. I see some of inverter generators that claim to be good for electronic devices. I think it's overkill to buy a 3500 watt inverter generator when a larger regular generator with volt guard would be cheaper and just use a line cleaner filter for sensitive devices. You're thoughts?

I agree. Although I have a cranky neighbor and was forced to use an inverter for back. There are other advantages to an inverter like better fuel economy, quieter and less engine wear. But also more to go wrong. I liked this champion generator a lot. Had a nice feature set.

Depends on your application.. sometimes u may want to increase the capacitance to improve the product. But one thing to keep in mind is the Chinese make a lot of fake capacitors like we could see at 12:00 mins where the 2nd module had a questionable looking nipon chemicon that was too small in physical dimensions for its specifications. It was always a good idea to measure with a capacitance & internal resistance meter before using any questionable china cap. They generally extract capacitors from ewaste and in the process of yanking them out they sometimes dent the capacitor with pliers so in order to fix that they fill the dents with wax and put on a new heatshrink wrap with false specifications and manufactur name. Most of the time they put fake nipon chemicon or nichicon or any other popular brand of capacitor's shrink wrap.. this is why when i need big caps i pay the extra to order from reputable sources like mouser , digikey , lcsc , element 14 etc.

@@KuntalGhosh surprising about the reused cap market!! I like to say the voltage tidbit on the capacitors because it’s the insulation rating- so really in a like for like situation, the capacitance is the value we need to keep constant. But as you say sometimes you need more or less capacitance, I had a customer request a single phase motor to start slower to have a softer start up so we decreased the start cap 150mfd

Thanks