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I recently got hold of a very hold and rusted chipper/shredder. It's a craftsman model# 247.797851, I believe from 1990.
Previous owner said it hasn't been used for years, but it did run fine before that. I cleaned the carburetor, replaced the spark plug and lo and behold the engine fired up.
However, this is when I noticed the engine has no governor. In the attached pictures, you can see where the governor rod is supposed to be, there is simply a bolt.
I figured the previous owner removed the governor on purpose and ran the engine by manually adjusting the throttle.
My only worry is, how do I know I'm not running at too high rpm? Is there an easy way to tell you are running at slow enough rpm to be safe?

No
3,500 rpm good
4,000 rpm better
5,000 rpm BANG
That is why the DPO put that bolt in there to restrict the amount of throttle opening .

Thanks for the fast reply. Now I know I should not be running higher than 4k rpm.
Onto he next problem, how do I measure the rpm? I guess a newbie like me can't tell the rpm just by listening to the sound of the engine. I'm eyeing some cheap tachometers on Amazon (they sell for < $13). You wrap some wire around the spark plug, and the meter is supposed to tell you the rpm. Is that something I should get, just to get piece of mind that the previous owner calibrated the throttle correctly?

That bodge should be removed and the original system restored or the shredder will not work properly
Without the governor it will die under heavy load so would not be much use other than to chop up dried leaves in Autumn prior to composting them.
Just by the spark plug there should be some numbers stamped into the blower housing.
Please post them so we can determine which governor was fitted to advise you how to proceed .

If the original wilbur who hacked it up took out the govenor gear then the engine will rev to 5k and not blow but will wear the big end of the con rod prematurely. If the govenor gear is still in the engine then around 5k the plastic gear lets go and the metal weights fly around in the engine and may get in the cam/crank gears. You are probably missing a bunch of parts to put back to stock.

Alright, attached are pictures of the blower housing. I also included the model number of the chipper found at the bottom plate.
Any advise is greatly appreciated.

A bit hard to read but as it is 5 Hp, if that blower housing is the original one you have a 130000 series engine made in 1990 .
To me it looks like 130212 3250-01.
If that is right both the owners manual & parts manual can be downloaded from the Briggs web page .
The IPL shows a cam shaft mechanical governor which I will guess is broken resulting in the bolt in the throttle control work around .
Check this by finding the governor rod where it pokes out of the crankcase .
start the engine & hold onto the governor rod.
It should try to rotate as the engine speed goes up & down
If it does then get all of the missing linkages and hook it up
If it does not then you need a rethink as repairing it means a full engine strip .
Check the carb is the same as the IPL shows because he could have also fitted an incorrect carb which did not link up to the original governor easily

Yes, I think you are absolutely correct, this is the 130212 3250-01 engine. Based on the diagram in the manual, unfortunately, the previous owner removed the governor rod completely, as where it should poke out, now is only a bolt. See the attached pictures of the relevant pages in the manual compared to the picture of the crankcase. I have marked in the pictures the relevant parts.

No, I don't want to do a complete engine strip, I'm fine running it as-is and use it as a light leaf shredder.

That's how I blew up my B&S 5hp on my Go-cart as a young kid.. My Dad was not impressed..

Well it looks like the governor gear # 391737 is still available and around $ 40 and the control arm # 490374 is $ 5
If the rest is in good order, those + a gasket set make it a very cheap shredder

I will bet the moving linkage on the bottom of the tank is gone and the belcrank and linkage at the carb. Not an easy fix.

Yeah, all the linkages and the spring that connects the governor lever to the throttle at the carburetor are all missing. That's much more than I'm willing to invest in right now, both money wise and time wise. Maybe in the future when somebody is throwing away their blown engine and I'm allowed to salvage the parts.
For now I have ordered the tachometer, as I think being able to read the rpm at all times is a good idea, no matter what. Once it arrives, I'll test it out the shredder on some yard trimmings that has been piling up. Hopefully it will serve it purpose as-is.

Should be OK with fresh trimmings and dry leaves
But any branch over 1/2" diameter will cause it to struggle sp will require a slow feed then wait till it builds up speed again the carry on.
Keep the blades really ( knife ) sharp .

A quick update for those of you who are still following this thread. I hooked up the tachometer and fired up the engine, revved it to the max (bolted) position, it reaches roughly ~ 3000 rpm, but the real issue is extreme excessive vibrations. The whole chipper is jumping and moving around. Something is clearly not balanced. I opened up the covers to take a look at the impeller wheel, and found an abomination of a hack job. The previous owner had somehow managed to attache an incompatible blade on top of the original blade. Oh boy, this "free" project just got much more involved than I expected.

Welcome to the world of You Tube "fixes"
I have seen that hack decade ago when I started up and spent too much time on You Tube whatching idiots with less than 2 functioning brain cells making a mess of perfectly good machines .

Looks like Wilbur AND Bubba did some work on it. Willing to be a 6 pack or two was involved.

If the governor is still enact, you're gonna be lucky. Maybe he removed the sump and got all of that out.

I'm just wondering if that hole is going to seal now that a bigger bolt has been inserted.

kinwin said:

I recently got hold of a very hold and rusted chipper/shredder. It's a craftsman model# 247.797851, I believe from 1990.
Previous owner said it hasn't been used for years, but it did run fine before that. I cleaned the carburetor, replaced the spark plug and lo and behold the engine fired up.
However, this is when I noticed the engine has no governor. In the attached pictures, you can see where the governor rod is supposed to be, there is simply a bolt.
I figured the previous owner removed the governor on purpose and ran the engine by manually adjusting the throttle.
My only worry is, how do I know I'm not running at too high rpm? Is there an easy way to tell you are running at slow enough rpm to be safe?

Click to expand...

You should have some idea of correct speed. Run it at 3/4 throttle. Be sure to check/change the oil.
If you do get parts since that bolt was threaded into the shaft hole, you will likely have an oil leak there.
Get a tach for small engines. Don't die rich.

Everyone wants "miracles"....for free..."PRAY"...and it will be fixed!

Placing an rpm guage will allow you to run the engine at max rpm (this has to checked using a mechanical rpm gauge to insure the new guage is set and reading correctly) . This will give you more power and if it starts to bog down you can increase throttle for short period. This means it will be a two person operation. One person feeding and the other controling the carburetor.
I believe it would take only a couple hours work to repair this engine at a cost of less then 75$ for parts. The only things that have to be removed to repair this is; the engine from the frame, the pully from the crank shaft, the side cover, the govenor inside and the governor arm assembly. I have repaired several govenors in the past and since this one will not effect the timing because the cam does not have to be removed it makes it much simpler to repair. The parts circled in yellow need to be checked to see if they are there not damaged and/or replaced. The oil sealon the crank also needs to be replaced. If you should repair it.

I really can't tell enough from those pictures to tell if you have a governor that could work or not. Basically just check it with your finger. Push back against the governor rod as you give it some throttle at the carburetor and if you're getting resistance then that means the internal Governor works. That's what you want so then all you have to do is hook up some linkage to it and a spring.
You can run an engine and probably get by for a long time without a governor but it's annoying and doesn't work that well. You have to constantly adjust it because under load it needs a lot more throttle and then when that load goes away it wants to over rev so it's just not good or safe for the engine and it's highly annoying.

I inherited that same mulcher. When I got it, the governor wasn't working and the engine would run at wide open throttle. The governor had disintegrated inside the engine, and I suspect that's what happened to yours. I cleaned out the bits of governor from the crankcase and fashioned an air-vane governor to replace the original plastic piece of junk.

You definitely don't want to run without a governor for a couple of reasons. 1. You can easily overspeed the engine. 2. The governor automatically throttles back under no-load and opens the throttle under load. Without a governor the throttle will be at a fixed position and the engine will bog way down under load. That mulcher needs all the power it can get, so the governor is essential.

It took me a while to get the impeller wheel balanced to minimize the vibrations. It's still far from perfect, but at least the chipper would stay at the same place now, when the engine is running. I had to order new shredder blades, it turned out the old blades were made for lawnmowers and not shaped the correct way for a shredder.
With new blades and a somewhat balanced impeller, I had good success in chipping and shredding away a big pile of yard trimmings. As expected, without the governor, the engine bogs down under load, but if you are patient and only feed a little at a time you can get the job done. Attached is a picture of the bucket of wood chips I made with this machine. I also slapped on a new coat of paint to cover the rust.
For now I'm very happy with this setup, it gets the job done, and I'm not planning to use it more than once or maybe twice a year, so the minor annoyance of running it without governor is acceptable for me. Anyways, I want to thank everybody on this thread who has provided very useful information to me, without which I would not have dared to proceed with the project. Thank you all for you help.

kinwin said:

It took me a while to get the impeller wheel balanced to minimize the vibrations. It's still far from perfect, but at least the chipper would stay at the same place now, when the engine is running. I had to order new shredder blades, it turned out the old blades were made for lawnmowers and not shaped the correct way for a shredder.
With new blades and a somewhat balanced impeller, I had good success in chipping and shredding away a big pile of yard trimmings. As expected, without the governor, the engine bogs down under load, but if you are patient and only feed a little at a time you can get the job done. Attached is a picture of the bucket of wood chips I made with this machine. I also slapped on a new coat of paint to cover the rust.
For now I'm very happy with this setup, it gets the job done, and I'm not planning to use it more than once or maybe twice a year, so the minor annoyance of running it without governor is acceptable for me. Anyways, I want to thank everybody on this thread who has provided very useful information to me, without which I would not have dared to proceed with the project. Thank you all for you help.

Click to expand...

here is another little diamond in the rough that will make working with it as is ( and I still do not recommend this ) as easy & time efficient as possible .
Rather than do a pile of trimmings then try to process them in one fell swoop, take the chipper down to where you are trimming & fire it up, then as you cut a branch off toss it strait into the chipper so it can chip while you are working out where to make the next cut .
Thus you are not hanging around like a shag on a rock while you wait for the chipper to finish each branch before you toss in the next one and the one job ( pruning ) does not create 2 more, ( Collecting the off cuts & processing them ).
It also gives the machine time to recover if you are not a demon with the pruning saw .
This is what I do with 4 acres of olive trees and 2 acres of christmass trees so 5 minutes after the final cut the job is finished .
I sit the chipper on a tarp and when it has as much on it as I can lift I grab the corners and empty the chips into a trailer.
When the trailer is full it is time to have a break so it gets driven down to the processing area for the olives to be turned into compost.
For the pine trees I start on a tarp then for the second tree I move it to the first tree & when finished the second tree, rake the clippings evenly around the base of first tree and thus wise for all 800 of them ( 2-3 day job depending upon the size of the trees ) .

sharnett said:

I inherited that same mulcher. When I got it, the governor wasn't working and the engine would run at wide open throttle. The governor had disintegrated inside the engine, and I suspect that's what happened to yours. I cleaned out the bits of governor from the crankcase and fashioned an air-vane governor to replace the original plastic piece of junk.

You definitely don't want to run without a governor for a couple of reasons. 1. You can easily overspeed the engine. 2. The governor automatically throttles back under no-load and opens the throttle under load. Without a governor the throttle will be at a fixed position and the engine will bog way down under load. That mulcher needs all the power it can get, so the governor is essential.

Click to expand...

So this "air-vane governor" is something you attache outside the engine, near the fly-wheel? Sounds like you wouldn't need to open up the engine to do this mod. Does Briggs and Stratton actually make an air-vane governor for this engine, or is this more of an aftermarket hack? I'm trying to figure out which is the easiest/cheapest solution, restore the factory governor gear which requires taking apart the engine cover, or this "air-vane" mod.

kinwin said:

I recently got hold of a very hold and rusted chipper/shredder. It's a craftsman model# 247.797851, I believe from 1990.
Previous owner said it hasn't been used for years, but it did run fine before that. I cleaned the carburetor, replaced the spark plug and lo and behold the engine fired up.
However, this is when I noticed the engine has no governor. In the attached pictures, you can see where the governor rod is supposed to be, there is simply a bolt.
I figured the previous owner removed the governor on purpose and ran the engine by manually adjusting the throttle.
My only worry is, how do I know I'm not running at too high rpm? Is there an easy way to tell you are running at slow enough rpm to be safe?

Click to expand...

Make sure to replace the flux capacitor and the Johnson rod to prevent the rpms from exceeding 4k. As the pressure should not exceed the hydraulic pressure, otherwise your proximity switch will implode.

What about the knuder valve ?

7394 said:

What about the knuder valve ?

Click to expand...

The knuder valve too

Very important !

Not sure if that one has a 'muffler bearing' tho ?

7394 said:

Not sure if that one has a 'muffler bearing' tho ?

Click to expand...

Pretty sure it needs new bumper gsakets.

Likely, bad history with them.

kinwin said:

So this "air-vane governor" is something you attache outside the engine, near the fly-wheel? Sounds like you wouldn't need to open up the engine to do this mod. Does Briggs and Stratton actually make an air-vane governor for this engine, or is this more of an aftermarket hack? I'm trying to figure out which is the easiest/cheapest solution, restore the factory governor gear which requires taking apart the engine cover, or this "air-vane" mod.

Click to expand...

I made the governor out of sheet metal. It is outside the engine, inside the cowling. The force of the cooling air blowing past the vane works against the governor spring. The faster the engine turns, the more more air flows past the vane, pushing the throttle closed. I didn't invent this, though I certainly admire its elegance and simplicity. It's used on a lot of old Briggs engines and you can look up "air vane governor" on line.

kinwin said:

I recently got hold of a very hold and rusted chipper/shredder. It's a craftsman model# 247.797851, I believe from 1990.
Previous owner said it hasn't been used for years, but it did run fine before that. I cleaned the carburetor, replaced the spark plug and lo and behold the engine fired up.
However, this is when I noticed the engine has no governor. In the attached pictures, you can see where the governor rod is supposed to be, there is simply a bolt.
I figured the previous owner removed the governor on purpose and ran the engine by manually adjusting the throttle.
My only worry is, how do I know I'm not running at too high rpm? Is there an easy way to tell you are running at slow enough rpm to be safe?

Click to expand...

It's very safe to run without a governor. Just keep the rpms under 3600. Easy right?

Personally I would fix the gov proper and drink a few cold beers.

Didn't work for my 1st Briggs as a kid.

sharnett said:

I made the governor out of sheet metal. It is outside the engine, inside the cowling. The force of the cooling air blowing past the vane works against the governor spring. The faster the engine turns, the more more air flows past the vane, pushing the throttle closed. I didn't invent this, though I certainly admire its elegance and simplicity. It's used on a lot of old Briggs engines and you can look up "air vane governor" on line.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I'll probably use the engine as-is for now, but I'll keep in mind all the options to restore the governor. Making your own air vane sounds same or more challenging than a factory restoration to me. Who knows, maybe in the future I'll feel brave enough to take on this task, but until then I'm content with what I've got so far. Thanks again for all the useful information.