Coleman Powermate

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I just got a Coleman Powermate 5000w generator at an estate sale. Never used, no smell of gas in the tank, no oil in crankcase. The only missing piece is the engine manual. It has a 10 HP Tecumseh with cast-iron cylinder sleeve. Need to know what oil to use and weight.
I'm thinking of using Amsoil 10W-30 Synthetic, 4 stroke Small Engine oil.
An engine manual in PDF would be most helpful.
 
That should be fine. I have a similar generator.

If it runs but does not put out electricity you will need to "excite" it.

The oil screw dipstick is unscrewed wiped off and stuck in the hole but not screwed to measure oil level.

I have a larger Winco propane generator I use now.
 
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Any 5W-30 or 10W-30 will work.

I suggest Shell Rotella T5 in 10W-30, good cheap, stout, semi synthetic...

Check the spark plug, some really poor quality Chinese clone plugs are being used these days.
I suggest an NGK....
 
How do i.e. "Excite" it?


Originally Posted By: Donald
That should be fine. I have a similar generator.

If it runs but does not put out electricity you will need to "excite" it.

The oil screw dipstick is unscrewed wiped off and stuck in the hole but not screwed to measure oil level.

I have a larger Winco propane generator I use now.
 
Originally Posted By: mattwithcats

Check the spark plug, some really poor quality Chinese clone plugs are being used these days.
I suggest an NGK....


Tecumseh hasn't been around for a while - it most likely has a factory installed Champion plug.
 
I have a 5KW Power Mate that's 10 years old with the Subaru engine and I use M1 10-30. Works very well.
 
^ Yes, parts are getting scarce for Tecumseh.

To the OP, like said, there should be some Coleman p/n's on the machine that you could Google. The engine will have it's own part number which will lead to lots of info too.
 
I have the same generator, and have had it for several years. There are a few things I have learned from using it, and also from others here on BITOG.

First off, these generators are extremely noisy. A good saying about how noisy they are is that they are noisy enough to wake the dead. Do not even think of running it without ear protection such as ear plugs. You can buy ear plugs at Harbor Freight.

As for oil, for the very hot summers, and not very cold winters of Texas the best oil for an air cooled engine like your Tecumseh would be Mobil 15W-50 . You want the 50 weight for the hot summer days that can get above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and the 15W will provide good cold weather starts for the not too cold winter days of Texas. If you can't find Mobil 15W-50 then use Mobil 20W-50 V-Twin motorcycle oil.

Here on BITOG there is a member who goes by Cujet who lives in Florida and he has posted that several of his neighbors had their air cooled engines destroyed by not using a good enough oil on hot Florida days.

I added a car muffler to mine. Installing it is quite a project. There are standard pipe threads built into the exhaust port that you can thread standard pipe into once you remove the muffler. The engine vibrates a lot and the first thing you should add to the threaded pipe is a flexible piece of pipe like the type that is available from McMaster-Carr.

I got the car muffler from Advance Auto Parts. It has a heat shield welded to it, and I welded some flat bars to the heat shield to mount the muffler to the bolts that hold the electric section together.

Even with the car muffler added to it, it is still too noisy to be around when it is running without ear protection. With the car muffler it sounded just as noisy when I was around it, but when you are inside your hours with the generator running on a cord 50 feet long so it is 45 feet from the house, there is a big difference with the car muffler. With the original muffler the generator was considered noisy in the house. With the car muffler the generator is only a mild hum when inside the house.

The black rubber circular gasket for the carburetor bowl tends to dry out and loose ability to seal. You can order additional bowl gaskets online from parts-tree. When this gasket goes bad the engine will idle rough and it my require the choke to be partly on in order to get it to run smoothly when there is no load applied to it.

It is a good idea to add an inline fuel filter on the hose between the gas-tank and the carburetor. A clear plastic fuel filter will let you see if it becomes clogged.
 
And of course the generator needs to be in an open outside area with no nearby windows open. A CO detector is also a good idea. I like the ones with LED readout that tell you how much CO in addition to setting off alarm.
 
A person who works on generators for a living told me that these generators come from the factory set up to run too fast. The correct RPMs is 3600 to produce 60 Cycles per second AC. He said that running faster than 3600 rpms is hard on these engines and can cause them to self-destruct. It is smart to set them to 3600 RPMs which is 60 cycles per second AC.

You can measure the frequency of the AC sine wave and set the governor to of the engine so as to provide 60 cycles per second. Load the generator with approximately half of full load when making that adjustment. Measure the AC frequency with a frequency meter and a resistor divider to divide the 120 VAC rms to 5 Volts peak, keeping in mind that 120 VAC rms is 169 Volts peak. Another way to measure the 60 cycle frequency is to use a clock with a second hand that runs on 120 Volts AC. Compare the second hand to a watch with a second hand. If the clock is fast the frequency is fast, and if the clock is slow the frequency is slow.
 
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There is sometimes a problem with the self-exciting of the electrical section of these generators. In order for the generator to make electricity it must have some residual magnetism left in the armature from the last time it was ran. When the generator is first turned on the residual magnetism causes it to produce some voltage. This production of voltage causes more magnetism in the armature, which causes it to produce still more voltage. If ALL of the residual magnetism is lost due to it sitting too long since last ran, you may have to do an initial exciting of the armature. There are two ways to do this.

First see if the generator is producing AC power when ran. If it is it would be wise to load it down to get the magnetism to a high level so it retains some magnetism until it is next used. If it does not produce any AC Voltage you can try exciting it by plugging an electric drill into the output and spinning the chuck of the electric drill by hand while pulling the trigger on the drill. This will back feed a small electric current into the generator and cause an initial exciting of the armature. A second way to excite one of these generators is to remove the little rectangular cover on the end of the generator and apply 6 to 12 Volts DC from a battery across the two connections beneath that cover, for a few seconds.

Do a search on youtube for energizing (or zapping) or flashing, the residual magnetism on a generator.
 
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I have one too. Is yours green? The engine is a Tecumseh HM100. Check the circuit breakers. I over heated the stupid thing. I dunno how badly, suspect a bad head gasket. Mine had only a 1 gallon tank. It was job site power for the saws when I worked on a framing crew. I don't think it has had a 100 hrs on it.
 
Originally Posted By: JimPghPA
If the clock is fast the frequency is fast, and if the clock is slow the frequency is slow.


Seems kinda complicated 10-20$ gear can measure it.

I have a kill-a-watts meter that does for example .. $14
 
Manuals for this model should be available at the Coleman website. I use Amsoil 20w50 in mine. Yes they are noisy , and no there is not a good way to quiet them down, as its due to the design. Some people have had good results making a sound shield out of a large plastic shell, sort of like those used around pools to store equipment or trashcans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ8irxldrCw
 
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