Care and Feeding of Small Engine's - Your Tips

[chefwong]

What's your regime aside from changing the engine oil per schedule. This is BITOG afterall, and there sure are other things aside from oil

I'm not a OPE guru but I do want my OPE to work after storage. Some may see a yearly frequency, some may not. My newest OPE is two EU2000'i gensets. I put some oil, some gas just to make sure they worked. Then, I drained the gas, dropped the bowl to get any other residue, and then pulled the plug, ran 2 secs of fogging oil, put plug back in, and then gave a couple pulls on the rope till I got some resistance.

I DON'T EXPECT to use these gensets - with the possibility of average use Once every 3 Years. I do plan to just use them during the summer months - hooking it up to a portable pressure washer just to exercise it.


On my snowblowers, same regime. Drop bowl, drain gas. Turkey Baster to get gas out of tank. Fog engine, and compress.

Good 'ole ethanol obviously being the main culprit of screwups.


Any other best pratices I may be missing...

 

[Hootbro]

You got the basics down. Anything else is just over thinking it for the sake of having the reason to finger you OPE equipment.

 

[dakota99]

I store my outdoor power equipment filled with gas, treated with mmo and marine stabil. Everything starts up just fine five months later.

Dry/wet i never did experience a difference. Just remember to run your generator every couple months, or it will lose it's magnetism.

 

[chefwong]

More *details* on the magnetisim.
Is there any difference between a traditional *full running 3600 RPM* genset, inverter genset & or a diesel genset...

 

[Chris142]

I store mine full also.leaving them empty causes more problems

 

[Donald]

Originally Posted By: chefwong
More *details* on the magnetisim.
Is there any difference between a traditional *full running 3600 RPM* genset, inverter genset & or a diesel genset...


Most common gas generators run at 3600 to get the 60 cycles. While that is 3600 RPM, the gas usage varies a lot depending upon the load. A few (mine) have a switch for "no load idle". When there is no load it goes to idle. Good at a construction so when you pull the trigger on a circular saw it goes up to 3600 RPM, but a house with clocks and electronics and control circuits cannot take advantage of that.

A generator with an inverter can run at less RPM when there is little load and full RPM when there is. They are expensive and do not go much over 5000W.

A serious diesel generator runs 1800. Some of the real small ones may run at 3600.

 

[chefwong]

I'm familiar with the RPM....

The statement was moreso to the *magnetisim* response.

 

[Dave Sherman]

Alternators and generators need some residual magnetism in the rotor to provide enough excitation to power the voltage regulator and rotor (field) windings. After a long time without being used that magnetism might diminish to the point where you could end up with a generator that isn't generating anything because it can't self-excite.

 

[chefwong]

I actually called B&S and Generac (my units are Honda). Both recommend firing up the genset at least 1 X a month.



That in which I may do during warmer months but not the winter.
If I don't end up firing it up during warmer months to use just to cycle through, would you guys say every 6 months or every 4 months is TOO short of a period to keep the *magnetisim* in check

 

[webfors]

Yes, I personally wouldn't let my generator sit for 6 months.

That being said, I was at a friends house over the weekend. Started talking about generators. He brings me downstairs and shows me this 'wacker g3.7' model. Been sitting in his basement for 8+ years under a cover of dust.

Of course the carb was filthy, lots of carb cleaner, drained the bad gas out of the tank, filled her with fresh gas and vrooom... that GX240 started right up. Had the factory oil in her too

 

[webfors]

I'm headed there this weekend with gear to load test it. So we'll see if it's truly dead or not.

 

[JimPghPA]

After your "drained the gas, dropped the bowl to get any other residue" I would suggest find the idle air hole (it is a very small hole), on most carbs it is either on the floor of the air passage way just behind the choke plate, or it can be on the front of the carb by the air intake gasket (the gasket may even have a hole or an indentation for it), and once you find it spray some WD-40 down that idle air hole, and if you can get to the main jet a few drops of WD-40 on it can't hurt.

Along with using StaBil fuel treatment and/or RedLine SL-1 in the fuel to try to prevent the ethanol carburetor idle air corrosion problems, I am starting to believe that WD-40 is one of the best fluids I would want on any metal surface that has to sit for an unknown amount of time and still be reliable.

 

[JimPghPA]

This is from a post I made here on BITOG a few months ago:

In a safe area such as (Not in a cellar with a gas water heater flame or a furnace that can run, and ignite gasoline fumes that are heavier than air and will travel along the cellar floor).

Drain the tank on the generator.

Dispose of old gasoline.

Expect about 1/2 to 2 ounces of gasoline to leak out, and take the bowl off of the carburetor.

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Generators that turn 3600 RPMs like my Coleman 5000 / 6250 with Tecumseh HM-100 have a residual magnetism that remains in the armature. When these units start to generate power that residual magnetism starts the initial flow of power. The current flow from then on increases that residual magnetism until it reaches a maximum. IF the generator sits too long it can (may or may not) loose the residual magnetism. IF it does loose the residual magnetism you will have to ZAP the armature with some source (electric current from a 6 or 12 Volt battery, or a huge magnet near it) to get a residual magnetism started. It is interesting that people who have done this say that if you have a light bulb on the output of the generator, it slowly increases in brightens. This is because the output current causes an increase in residual magnetism, that causes an increase in output voltage and current, that causes an increase in residual magnetism – exc. -exc.

So if you do not want a 3600 to loose its residual magnetism you should run it once in a while. How often is anybodys guess, and the time interval to loose the residual magnetism probably varies with the manufacturer, and maybe even with individual units.

If there is not an outage, I now run my Coleman Powermate about twice a year, and so far have never had to zap it.

Then there is the problem of keeping the carb clean. The small idle circuit air hole just behind the choke plate (on the floor of the air passage before the main jet) tends to get clogged up. Sta-Bil or Redline SL-1 in the fuel helps fight the ethanol in the fuel that aids this clogging. WD-40 down that hole before storage is a good idea.

I have a Generac ix2000 that I ran Stabil and then sprayed WD-40 on the carb idle circuit, and main jet. I also foamed the cylinder with Sta-Bil Foaming spray oil, and pulled the rope a few times with the spark plug out. Then put the spark plug in and lightly pulled the rope so it stopped on a compression stroke so moisture from the air can not condense out of the air and build up in the cylinder, and also the springs for the valves are not in full compression. I will leave this gen-set sit like this for several years if it is not needed for an outage. This generator is not a 3600 RPM unit and to the best of my knowledge does not require residual magnetism to start. However if it did not generate any electric when first used I would hold a huge magnet near the electric generation section to initate it.

It is a good idea to pull the bowl off after you run it dry, so you clean out any crud and also get the last bit of fuel out of it.


Probably the best fuel tubing is Tygon fuel tubing. You can get it from McMaster-Carr. There are several kinds of Tygon tubing. The kind you want is Tygon F-4040-A , and McMaster-Carr sells it in just about any ID you could use.

Also add an inline fuel filter.

McMaster-Carr has a special deal with UPS. Expect you package to arive at your door in one day, two days tops. And the shipping charge will be low.

 

[TFB1]

I store my OPE with approx 1/3 tank treated with Sta-Bil, next spring fill with fuel crank and go... Oil changes usually early in season...

My generator hasn't been started in over a year, maybe I'll try it soon... It's a '98 model bought slightly used and has set for two or three year periods with only a issue when stored dry, I keep treated fuel in it now...

 

[Cujet]

I use 100LL Avgas and Mobil 1, 5W-40 TDT or 15W-50. Change every 50 hrs or 2 years.

Excellent results!

 

[SOHCman]

One way to escape ethanol for storage is buying one of those cans of ethanol free gas and use that specifically for your pre-storage engine run. That plus stabil and maybe 500:1 two stroke oil for extra corrosion resistance.

 

[Hondoman]

I've always recommended storing equipment with the tank full and the fuel stabililzed. More important is the quality of the fuel. A lot of the cheap gas stations sell fuel that will lose its volatility sooner than the branded fuels. If you are storing longer than the summer or winter (lawn mower or snowthrower) then I would drain fuel. Before you do, make sure you have run some stabilized fuel through the system to protect any residue you might miss (such as in fuel lines.)