Servicing My Generator for Winter
I made a little video of me servicing my 3500 Predator Inverter Generator for winter. Did the oil, air filter, battery, and drained the fuel. I hope you enjoy. https://youtu.be/Qag3nH1H6lE
Forum Discussion
Rider7767 wrote:azrving wrote:Indirect Sarcasm, Awesome!Rider7767 wrote:azrving wrote:
How many hours? Valve adjustment?
About 20 hours. I bought it at the end of the camping season for my trip to the Smoky Mountains. Valve adjustment is at 300. I will not adjust my valves unless I see some need. With good oil and fuel, the valves should not need adjustment for a long time. My last Gen had about 500 hours and I sold it because it was loud. My friend still uses it. Never touched the valves.
Strange that an engineer would think differently. Just wondered about accessibility.
Why do they tell you to change the oil at 30 hours? Because it's the break in time frame to get the trash out of the crankcase. In the same respect the FIRST valve adjustment is the MOST important one not the one that is 1500 hours late. By seeing the valve clearances early on you can make two assumptions as far as following the manufacturers schedule. If the clearance is spot on or very very close you might assume that it's able to go longer next time. If it's off considerably you could assume that it wasn't correct from day one or that it may need more frequent adjustments. If you then did a second check and everything is ok then you would know they had it wrong from day one extend the inspection interval.
Regardless of Yamaha or Honda or Predator recommendation it's the first lower hour valve check that is the most important. It's not the end of the world to not do it but it's just good maintenance to do it right and know it's right. The small effort is just more assurance of long life.
The valve adjustment also effects the performance of any engine. Wide gap equals late open, early close. Tight valve equals valve face heat and burning. Valve head contact dissipates heat to seat then head then cooling air. Most all of these engines utilize a centrifugal compression release which is affected by valve clearance. The centrifugal flyweight uses a secondary"tab" which opens the exhaust valve slightly during the compression stroke. When the engine fires and speeds up the flyweight allows the tab to retract and allows full compression. A wide gap equals higher compression which is hard on the starter.
Too tight a clearance equals lower compression and possible hard start. The other super ears on hear can hear all of this though and dont need no stinkin feeler gauge. :)
