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bighatnohorse's avatar
bighatnohorse
Explorer II
Apr 29, 2015

Honda generator bites the dust

My little Honda EU1000 up and died.
Started good - ran for ten minutes - quit and won't restart.
No big loads attached at the time.
Oil level good. Premium fuel used.

Genny is about 6 to 7 years old and probably less than 80 to 100 hours of use.

Attempt to troubleshoot includes removing covers, perform visual inspections. Nothing amiss there.
I disconnected the yellow wire (internet research says to "cut" yellow wire to the low oil pressure sensor) and tried starting.
No joy.

Any ideas, experiences along those lines that might get it running again?
  • shum02's avatar
    shum02
    Explorer
    May 08, 2015
    I'll pull plugs in power equipment once and a while and heat the carbon up with a torch then brush it off. Often get the tip looking like new. Wouldn't do this for "on the road" stuff but for power equipment it seems to be worth it.
  • pnichols's avatar
    pnichols
    Explorer II
    May 08, 2015
    Rich,

    What you found solved your problem reminded me of something. For several years now I've used one of these spark plugs in our built-in Onan generator and our little red Honda portable - with great results in both:

    http://e3sparkplugs.com/
  • bighatnohorse's avatar
    bighatnohorse
    Explorer II
    May 08, 2015
    It was the spark plug.
    What appears to be a small speck of grit (maybe carbon?) was stuck between the center and ground electrode.
    The grit was stuck there - it required a bit (hardly any) of prodding with a knife blade to pop it off.

    Put the plug back in and the Honda started and ran. And ran under load with no problem.
    Thanks for the hints and suggestions.
  • jrnymn7's avatar
    jrnymn7
    Explorer
    May 02, 2015
    Japanese Red? Norwegian Blue? Not sure. Either way... Be-ut-i-ful Plumage!

    Ran the gennie for 10 straight hours last weekend. It's starting on first pull, and staying running much sooner now... so the cleaner seems to be slowly getting the job done. Hopefully a couple more tanks run through it will bring it up to tip top condition. These really are great little gensets.
  • randallb's avatar
    randallb
    Explorer
    May 02, 2015
    jrnymn7,
    Could this be one of the rarely seen Honda Norwegian Blues?
    Randy
  • 64thunderbolt's avatar
    64thunderbolt
    Explorer II
    May 01, 2015
    Raften wrote:
    Another vote for Sea Foam in a Honda and all motors.


    I have cleaned Onan carbs that wouldn't start or run with great success with seafoam. Have been using it for years in everything I own. One carb that was useless that I cleaned has been running on my friends gen for 2 yrs now trouble free. That is the first thing I would try. Good luck
  • mlts22's avatar
    mlts22
    Explorer
    Apr 30, 2015
    I've had good luck with Star-Tron. Sta-Bil was OK, but Star-Tron seems to have done quite well in keeping my generator able to start on the first pull.
  • jrnymn7's avatar
    jrnymn7
    Explorer
    Apr 30, 2015
    I started having problems last fall, after the gennie sat for a couple months. Now it starts, surges, and stalls several times, but then eventually chugs along with the choke closed. Probably due to Ethanol. I've ran both fuel stabilizer and small engine tune-up thru it, to little or no avail. Will likely have to do a good carb cleaning.

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