Works fine, thank you.
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Came home with a GX340 today.
This is too large and not what I wanted but it has a heavier flywheel and big valve head.
This afternoon I will try and bring home the real prize a GX240.
Together these might offer up enough to parts to build the " Mongoloid " Kohler generator re-power as I have started to call it.
But that will also leave me with a dead generator from the donor and a GX340 block…
Hmmm…
This might be a combination to build a purely produce gas High compression generator and engine…
Picures to follow this evening.
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Part of my interest in DOW has become the innovative builds folks use.
Good luck on your “marriage” of parts, it gives hope to those of us
with piles of parts. Please add a photo or two when you’re ready.
Pepe
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Side by each the big block Honda stripped of its tin work is larger than the K series Kohler.
Their displacement is close 340 for the Honda and 305 for the K series Kohler.
Hp is 11 for the Honda and 7 for the Kohler. ( advantage Honda due to its OHV higher compression design )
Both are ball bearing engines with iron bores for long life and reliability.
Advantage Kohler for full cast iron construction and extremely rigid e block and excellent heat retention
where it is needed with minimum thermal expansion.
This engine also features a double set of counter rotating vibration damapers for ultra smooth operation.
Advantage Honda High compression, superior hp output per cc and exceptional fuel economy
It does have a single counter rotating balance shaft for vibration control.
Last Photo is the kids snow machine and the snow melting under it.
Be afraid of the melting snow, something is wrong here.
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It is getting very crowded in here.
But we now have the donor generator and its engine.
I don’t know exactly what’s wrong with this, It will require a complete disassembly anyways for its its Propane/NG conversion.
Quite a nice plastic fuel tank ( full of fuel too ).
Maybe I will use it and keep the gasoline option, but it will require a minimum of 91 octane after my engine work.
Upon further investigation this doner generator has an auto idle feature I might be able to work back into Kohler electrics as a fuel saver mode.
All kinds of interesting stuff and I have not even taken this apart yet.
So here we have a very conventional Chinese generator, nothing special here other than its a little more robustly built than most.
The engine is a real GX240 big block driving a Chinese head rated at 4000 watts.
I should have torque to spare driving the the kohler but I am going to add more power to this with a compression increase and maybe an improved ignition and the heavier flywheel off the GX340…
Total build cost so far:
40 dollars for the Kohler plant with the bad engine.
12 Dollars can of paint.
Donor engines FREEBIE !
And about 20 litres of free gasoline that’s not smelly and oxidized I just put in my car.
Special thanks to my coworker Livio for the use of the truck to move all this and Sudbury Small engines that gave me the Scrap engine and parts in exchange for some technical support ( I will be wiring a L600 plant up at his cottage fair trade I think )
.
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Another interesting day here at Muppet Labs.
A discovery this Generator is a MeccAlte product and so it is very different from the Usual Honda/Clone stuff.
Its designed to be PTO driven or direct drive with some additional parts.
Here is one near identical for belt drive.
This also means I do not have to buy case cover for the engine.
Now the crank is in play, I have no idea what I will find, it may even be a Morris taper for all I know.
This puts the other big block into play as viable engine too.
it could end up driving the MeccAlte head via pully and be my producer gas project .
Or it could jus end up on my snow blower…
Or I could drop the tub on the snow blower build a producer that bolts in place, add the MeccAlte belt driven head ( would require a conversion ) and build a self propelled producer powered all terrain generator.
( Probably going WAY TOO FAR over thinking this HA HA )
Important thing is to get that alternator separated from engine.
Tomorrows Job…
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Down the rabbit hole we go
Its a pleasure sometimes to work on stuff that’s not crap.
This came apart like a dream.
But it was a little too much to hope for that I could use that crank.
It was also dodgy to think there might be enough steel to turn
Thats OK aftermarket cranks are not that expensive.
Off to the machine shop to talk to the man about how much this machine work will cost.
Time to figure if this is really worth it.
Rolling tab is still about 50 bucks considering the free gas it came with.
5000 hours on the meter?
Can thatr be true?
These questions and others will be answered by the internal examination to come next
And look we still have some spare parts for another project.
Dogs.
never too many pictures of dogs…
She will have to give up the baby, its a gift for my niece’s little one.
I had to take this picture, she sneaks into the spare room where I have presents to wraps and steals the dolls.
Big guy he just eats garbage and gives you guilty looks
Not going to be easy to find a machinist to make this crank for me.
Stopped at a few places and most were not interested.
This does not pay and its the kind of work that takes set up time on an engine lathe.
I kind of already knew this was not something shops tooled up for production work would do.
One place I stopped at did not even have a machinist in it.
Just some young kid with the stereo turned up load, baby sitting a row of CNC machines.
He said he did not know how to do what I asked…
Very disquieting times we live in.
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I have a tentative deal to get this crank machined locally in January.
SO I am going to pour myself a drink and relax for a bit, then head out to the shop and start to take the Honda pieces and see what it will need done.
Machine work is such a pain in this town I think I will draw file the head down myself rather that try and find someone willing to mill it.
Vice work is a little slower but I can do this just as well by hand.
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Never knew you could do that. I didn’t think you could get it accurate enough by hand. But alas, but here is a video on it… how do you keep the pressure even on the file?
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You need a precision straight edge to check results, and a marking compound to verify evenness.
For heads a person should be able to use varying grits wet & dry sandpaper glued to granite tiles.
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Yes. Well said. Specific condions optimized desgns and few-to-none will buy it outside of those forced-to-oprate conditions.
Vehicle sexiness: sells.
New woo-tech features: sells.
Perceived upgraded safety: sells.
Real Practicality, and long-life usability, sales, not-so-much. By-by to too many previous names.
Many times now in the past a manufacture, or manufacturing conglomerate engineering studies designed 500,000 mile life cars.
Always sales& marketing nixed right off the bat. Long-term stocks-investors (upper management) nixed too.
Then later progressive-forwarders nixed as would not have the latest/greatest emissions reducing; and/or safety “savings” technology.
So . . . the trick of it is to take what is offered up; over-maintain it and get your 300,000-500,000 mile life-in mechanical services. 10 year life in service as a minimum.
Ha! Too many of us doing that so then more will-age/will-fail drive-you-nuts electronic systems were incorporated. Expanding out use of road salts to churn the ownership’s turn-over to their $$,$$$ standards.
Learn to drive with lots of failures lights and part, still acceptable doo-dads, performances.
Use the best Nordic rust prevention annual cleanings, preservings on intent found vehicles.
Only let a total wreck pry your chosen preserved out of your cold dead hands. Whine. By-by to my selected out 1-in-a-thousand; 99 Honda CRV. On to the bought new, well preserved Hyundai Tucson. (with the gone super tweaky all electronic ATC climate control system)
So you just think our now ramped-up, rush-rush frenzied, tech-distracted wild drivers now have not be produced, eh?
They were.
S.U.
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I heated the shop up for nothing.
Never went out today I just lost motivation.
I think I have a cold coming on just in time for Christmas.
Raining too…
Thats all it takes to bring things to a stop now, a little rain and mid sinus pain.
I think I will take it easy for the rest of my days off…
My first real job in the electrical business was for an old German man that showed me some tricks like this to make damaged or warped machine surfaces flat.
Lots of fellows over the years have done this sort of thing with the small or big block Honda.
Even using a belt sander to take the majority of the metal off and finishing up on a flat true surface.
If you have a local fellow that makes heads stones or stone counter tops a thick slab of that stone with some 320 grit sand paper you can true up a head on.
Not such good idea with a block to try and deck this way though.
I would be afraid of screwing that up.
Useful video.
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This man is using a technique from another gun smith who’s name eludes me right now.
There are few different schools of though on the best way to do this.
The pull method, or the way I was shown is to push.
But I hold my hands under the file with light pressure to try and avoid causing deflection in the file.
You probably can do it both ways equally well.
Today people do not treat a hand tool with the kind of respect they should.
Files should be kept clean and lightly oiled when not in use and never touch other hardened surfaces.
You shoudl clean them dry with contact cleaner before use and as done in the video chalk to help keep the teeth clear.
I think he uses way to much chalk and I honestly think he is not very familiar with this technique on how his hands are moving and and his claim this is slow.
The Gun smith I knew all those years ago could work up one hell of a sweet but turn a round barrel into an octagonal one faster than you could set up a mill to do the same work.
When you do this right and you have a good file you can turn steel into wire wool it flies off so fast.
Trick is to keep consistent pressure, check for flatness and keep you file clear.
Also to remove machining marks I would not use a draw file.
Sharpening stones can polish very nicely if used correctly.
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I have a hard time understanding how this engine can show 5158 hours.
That’s just crazy, there must be something wrong with hour meter.
Today I took the engine apart for a look inside.
Things are not so bad.
I see some cross hatch still left in the bore.
The carbon flakes off the piston crown very easily.
Head looks fine no obvious issues.
Carbon flakes away with no effort maybe oil fouling.
If I did not know better I would say this is saw dust the way it flakes off and falls out almost no effort required to remove.
And there was too much oil in this engine.
Maybe that was the reason it went in for service and was scrapped.
The mechanic saw the hour meter and assumed it was done.
There may well be a lot of hours on this.
I just don’t…
Next the final disassembly and measuring to see it this can be rebuilt.
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Some run time meters may work if the key is turned to acc. mode. Forgot to turn the key off and the run time meter kept going. Or some one hooked the wiring up wrong and it kept running all the time. Then the wiring was corrected.
Bob
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Hard to say.
There is no external power/battery on this unit.
There is a great deal of wear on the standby low idle solenoid.
Maybe this was already re-powered once and this is a replacement engine.
When you do not know the history on stuff like this everything is guess work.
I am guessing right now and won;t know much until I measure the bore and see what its like.
Everything else is a 100 dollar roller kit easy to replace.
How can you ever go wrong buying a GX series engine?
Repair parts are so cheap.
I think I am going to buy this dry gas kit.
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Lathe ways have been hand scrapped for a long long time. I almost got a job doing that about 25 years ago.
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Learned some more stuff today.
The other engine is a 390 not a 340 as I thought and contrary to what folks tell me a Ring gear flywheel with a lighting package will not fit the 270.
Nothing else is new.
Its cold and Christmas is coming…
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Pressure washer at the car wash.
Block is clean and so are most of the greasy parts.
I am heating the shop and will start the internal examination of the the engine now.
Its would appear that strange dirty oiling saw dust like material is also in the engine.
What is this?
Did one of you guys DOW this to death and send it here as a joke?
No someone likely did this all wrong.
The counter balance shaft does not appear to be in synchronicity.
The rod journal and bearings appear to suffer from contamination.
This engine require a complete roller kit.
![000_1188|690x460]
Flywheel side oil seal is bad.
This would explain where all the oil came from.
OOPS!!!
lost a part in the snow.
Missing governor part small cone that presses against the linkage lever.
This will have to be purchased/replaced.
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Some pictures are pretty bad.
Right now I am fixated on the failure mechanism in this engine.
What has happened to gum it up like this.
Look at the piston!
Its tarred up.
Rings are stuck.
As a matter of fact if you feed an engine dirty gas and your filters are bad this is exactly what it would look like
I am convinced that was sawdust in the combustion chamber,
It must have been blowing oil everywhere, smoking like hell too.
My stinky old girl just showed me her observation ability.
Dog spat out a missing part.
Must have tasted awful not sure where she found it but she dropped in the entrance this morning.
Dog collects junk just like its owner i guess.
Closer observation.
What did my dog find?
This is a part to something else.
I have another engine to strip.
Where did she find this little metal part to ???
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