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generac 006720 generator

#1

M

Mark H_NO

Got a Generac 0066720. Runs nice and smooth, but the governor is off. It was surging/hunting, and I adjusted the governor per directions I found on youtube. Loosen nut on governor arm, open throttle to full, gov arm fully in that direction, rotate gov shaft cw. It didn't move much, but now as soon as I take the choke off, it hits full throttle. I can throttle back manually and it runs fine, but the gov just goes to the wall. I'm new to adjusting governor, so I'm sure I did something wrong. This is the video I was going from. I tried adjusting the spring on the gov arm, but I loosened it till it's hanging, and still goes to full throttle.



#2

I

ILENGINE

Lets start over. Loosen the governor arm nut. Move the throttle to full throttle while watching which direction the governor arm moves. And then turn the governor shaft in the same direction as the arm moved. So if the arm moves CW then turn the shaft CW if the shaft went CCW then turn the shaft CCW. And then while holding everything in place tighten the nut. making sure to get it correctly tight so the arm doesn't twist on the shaft.

OK, now you say it was running nice and smooth, but also hunting and surging, Which is it. And how do you know the governor was off. Most generators have one operating speed without a manual throttle control. Do you have a tachometer to properly set the engine speed?


#3

M

Mark H_NO

I believe that is what I did. When I started, I would start the engine, then turn the knob to the run position, from the start position(which takes off the choke.) The motor would run at what seemed to be a moderate rpm, but would speed up, and slow back down. It would be mostly at that moderate rpm, and then speed up, slow down, pause, then repeat. There is no manual throttle control. I do have a tachometer, but have not put it on this machine. I'll do that tomorrow. When I say it was smooth, it was not missing or sounding rough at all, but the rpm was going up and down. In the last couple of weeks , I've worked on a number of similar sized generators, 4-5kw, single cylinder engines, mostly Briggs. This machine runs smoother than any of them. Of course, all of them were abandoned by their owners. This one had 2 inline fuel filters, and a rusty tank. I bet it sat around with water in the tank till the filters clogged and it wouldn't run any more. The carb looked almost new inside.

Thanks,
Mark


#4

M

Mark H_NO

It was my thought that the hunting, was a symptom of the governor being maladjusted, or not working correctly. I could see that the governor was controlling the throttle. I've worked on small engines for a long time, as a shade tree mechanic, but have not messed with governors much. So much of the time, clean the fuel lines and carb, and you're back in business.


#5

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

on generators more so, if i get one thats surging, I'll hold the throttle shaft against the stop screw, if it's a governor problem, it will run fine, if it's a fuel problem it will begin running bad or sometimes die all together, 98% of the time surging is a fuel issue


#6

M

Mark H_NO

Hold it at idle? That's the only stop screw I know about. I'll try that in the future. I could see the governor tweaking the throttle as it happened, but that could have been a symptom, not the cause I suppose. I gotta get this one back down to reasonable rpm. I'll put the tach on it, and redo the governor adjust and see where I am in the morning.


#7

I

ILENGINE

Like Scrub said. Almost all surging issues are due to fuel/carb issues. I can't think of the last time I ran into a governor surge issue outside of the governor not working and the engine trying to find the self destruct button. Actually I think the last confirmed governor surge I encountered I actually caused on a Briggs V-twin after oil sump gasket replacement, and put too much preload on the static governor setting.

And a tach is important with generators because engine rpm sets the AC frequency.


#8

M

Mark H_NO

This one isn't making much power yet.


#9

M

Mark H_NO

So, as advised, I started over. I printed your instructions(which agree with what I'd read elsewhere) and readjusted the governor. Once started, I had to readjust the sole screw/spring, to bring it up from idle. It purrs at 3600 RPM. Due to my background in EE, that means something to me. Thank you Ilengine adn Scrubcadet.

I'm currently seeing 22VAC on one leg, 2VAC on the other. I do have a good AVR from a similar size gen. Am I risking blowing it if I put it on this one?


#10

M

Mark H_NO

The connections were corroded, as the endcap is missing on this unit. I cleaned them up before this test.


#11

M

Mark H_NO

So, it's likely a problem with stator. The windings look burnt. The connectors for the brushes are melted, which isn't a good sign. The motor runs great though. Just thought I'd post the results. So, if you adjust the governor, and the motor just races at full throttle afterward, do it again, and do it right this time.burned.jpg


#12

I

ILENGINE

The winding is burnt to a crisp. And you don't even wan to know what that cost. Hint. More than the generator sells for.


#13

M

Mark H_NO

That's what I figured. It's still a good motor.


#14

I

ILENGINE

Mark H_NO said:
That's what I figured. It's still a good motor.
Click to expand...
That motor uses the normal generator tapered shaft and the genset mounting flange is part of the engine side cover which will about make it unuseable for any other purpose. Just went and looked the genset is $650


#15

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

Time to keep your eyes open for a generator with a bad motor and same genset.


#16

M

Mark H_NO

That's what I was thinking. Thanks again.


#17

R

RevB

Have you ever replaced the air filter? If you unlatch the filter housing and lift the filter up does the surging stop? Bad batch of filters years ago had a flame retardant sprayed on. Yeah....it stopped flames but also severely restricted airflow.


#18

M

Mark H_NO

I believe the surging was governor related. I adjusted it(twice) and got it to run nice and smooth, but due to the burnt stator coil, it's not making power. It's a salvage, so it's just getting noted that it needs genset, runs good. It's not like it's my emergency power or anything.


#19

T

TobyU

Mark H_NO said:
It was my thought that the hunting, was a symptom of the governor being maladjusted, or not working correctly. I could see that the governor was controlling the throttle. I've worked on small engines for a long time, as a shade tree mechanic, but have not messed with governors much. So much of the time, clean the fuel lines and carb, and you're back in business.
Click to expand...
First of all, messing with the governor and adjusting its static adjustment is one of the LAST things you ever do to one of these small engines if it's having a running problem, surging or hunting.
Pretty much all of these surging issues are not the governor but rather the carburetor is slightly lean

The best way to test for this on a machine that is running is to take a shop cloth or a microfiber towel and fold it into force and then hold it slightly over the intake underneath the air filter to see if it will smooth out and stop surging.
If it does, and it usually will, this confirms that it is running too lean.
Then it's a matter of cleaning out the carburetor but of course far too many people out there will then go buy a new carburetor or order one from Amazon or whatever which is also a waste of time and money.
It either needs the main jet cleared out a little bit more like it should have been from the factory or if it has a secondary idle/pilot jet, which is often the case, it needs that one cleaned out because it is often plugged solid and that will cause the surging.

Typically when there is a governor problem the engine runs smoothly but it simply won't maintain its RPMs when you put a load on it.
Sometimes it's a little more complicated than this simplistic explanation but there is just a certain sound and a certain way they run and typically they are very slow to recover up to their full speed if you hold the throttle closed to slow the idle way down to an idle speed.
This is usually the symptoms of a governor that needs adjusted but the fact is out of 500 Small engines you come across, probably not even one of them needs the governor adjusted.
It simply doesn't get out of adjustment and the only thing that needs to be done is to bend whatever Tang to adjust the spring to pull a little harder against the governor or softer to adjust the RPMs.
The actual adjustment hardly ever needs to be touched.

You can look up the procedure for a static governor adjustment but it will be hard to find an actual written tutorial with a picture or two because you'll all you'll find will be stupid YouTube videos.
Videos that take far longer to get through and get to the actual meat of the situation that you want and videos that are about 80% either completely wrong, or doing things the hard way.
Very much upsets me what the internet has become for a repair reference resource.
It is far worse than it used to be.


#20

M

Mark H_NO

Thanks Toby. I agree about the youtubes. So many times, a clearly written paragraph or two would cover the issue, and you've got to watch 4 different videos to put together the information. In this case, I did get a nicely written explanation, which worked great the second time I did it. I think I put too much pressure on the governor rod adjusting it the first time. The carb is my usual first thing to work on. So many times it's simply a dirty carb.


#21

R

RevB

TobyU said:
First of all, messing with the governor and adjusting its static adjustment is one of the LAST things you ever do to one of these small engines if it's having a running problem, surging or hunting.
Pretty much all of these surging issues are not the governor but rather the carburetor is slightly lean

The best way to test for this on a machine that is running is to take a shop cloth or a microfiber towel and fold it into force and then hold it slightly over the intake underneath the air filter to see if it will smooth out and stop surging.
If it does, and it usually will, this confirms that it is running too lean.
Then it's a matter of cleaning out the carburetor but of course far too many people out there will then go buy a new carburetor or order one from Amazon or whatever which is also a waste of time and money.
It either needs the main jet cleared out a little bit more like it should have been from the factory or if it has a secondary idle/pilot jet, which is often the case, it needs that one cleaned out because it is often plugged solid and that will cause the surging.

Typically when there is a governor problem the engine runs smoothly but it simply won't maintain its RPMs when you put a load on it.
Sometimes it's a little more complicated than this simplistic explanation but there is just a certain sound and a certain way they run and typically they are very slow to recover up to their full speed if you hold the throttle closed to slow the idle way down to an idle speed.
This is usually the symptoms of a governor that needs adjusted but the fact is out of 500 Small engines you come across, probably not even one of them needs the governor adjusted.
It simply doesn't get out of adjustment and the only thing that needs to be done is to bend whatever Tang to adjust the spring to pull a little harder against the governor or softer to adjust the RPMs.
The actual adjustment hardly ever needs to be touched.

You can look up the procedure for a static governor adjustment but it will be hard to find an actual written tutorial with a picture or two because you'll all you'll find will be stupid YouTube videos.
Videos that take far longer to get through and get to the actual meat of the situation that you want and videos that are about 80% either completely wrong, or doing things the hard way.
Very much upsets me what the internet has become for a repair reference resource.
It is far worse than it used to be.
Click to expand...
Precisely.


#22

R

rhkraft

ILENGINE hit on it. The governor on a generator is critical to maintain AC frequency, i.e. cycles. Home AC runs on 60 cycles. As an example it is what keeps your clock on time. If the cycles are off, your plug-in AC clocks will run fast or slow. All electronics depends on the cycles being right. Get a generator technician to make sure it is adjusted right or you will have trouble with electronics and appliances later. This adjustment is not for a shadetree amateur.


#23

I

ILENGINE

rhkraft said:
ILENGINE hit on it. The governor on a generator is critical to maintain AC frequency, i.e. cycles. Home AC runs on 60 cycles. As an example it is what keeps your clock on time. If the cycles are off, your plug-in AC clocks will run fast or slow. All electronics depends on the cycles being right. Get a generator technician to make sure it is adjusted right or you will have trouble with electronics and appliances later. This adjustment is not for a shadetree amateur.
Click to expand...
In this case it isn't going to matter if the hertz are off because the genset released the factory installed smoke.


#24

M

Mark H_NO

I do have a degree in Electrical Engineering... Seriously. Ok, my thing was computers, not power generation but... I agree the problem was probably carb to start. I adjusted the governor, got it wrong, and redid it after some advice here, and got it right. I would have adjusted the fine tune to get the hz correct, but the magic smoke already got out. I've been working on a dozen or so generators a friend had accumulated over the years that people gave up on. This one needs a genset, as I was advised. Most of the others are working well. I've learned a good bit. Thanks again to all who contributed.


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