On Mon, 05 May 2008 02:43:17 +0000, Larry wrote:

Bruce in Bangkok wrote in
:

I recently downloaded about 500 posts from alt.energy.homepower and
found a thread discussing honda generators and problems they have with
the oil system. I am not sure if this is the same model as you are
using but you might want to research this as apparently there is a
small plastic gear that can be seen through the oil drain hole that
fails and stops oil reaching the cylinder.


Huh?? I think my EU3000is and I know my EU1000i little suitcase have the
same "oil system" as my lawn mower....the crank splashes the oil all over
the crankcase when it comes down, including the rings. There's no little
gear inside either one of mine, because I use a rubber water bulb made
for battery acid to suck out the old oil, cleanly and pump in new oil.
These little one cylinder engines have no "oil system"....

My EM5000X 11hp slant single had no oil system, either....

Splash might be considered a lubricating "system."
Since I was curious I did a little searching.
The gear Bruce referred to is the governor gear.
Parts of that plastic gear assembly are paddles to splash oil.
Not clear if they are for splashing the cylinder walls, but I did read
one description of them splashing the internal timing belt which
carries the oil to the valve assembly (rockers, lifters).
In any case, it has caused some premature failures.
Since the cost of repairing these engines seems pretty high, I don't
know if it's a good thing to look in that drain hole to have it tell
you "You're f**ked."
Since replacement involves getting down to splitting the crankcase,
unless you're adept at engine repair you might be better off not
knowing about those paddles, and let it run until it's just time to
buy a new one.
But all true info is basically good to know (-:

--Vic

Vic Smith wrote in
:

Since the cost of repairing these engines seems pretty high

Repairing Rolls Royce and Maybach engines is cheaper than repairing
ANYTHING Honda makes....

The non-descript V-belt that drives my Honda Reflex 250cc scooter is
$81.25. Ask any Honda dealer. To clean out its one barrel carb on this
one cylinder engine, replace the spark plug (only $2.50 for the plug, I
was amazed.) and replace the drive belt came to $632.11 at Velocity
Powersports, the Honda dealer in Summerville, SC. This negated most all
the money saved by the scooter getting 75 mpg for the last year. I might
as well have driven a Mercedes....

I asked them about just replacing this simple, one bbl carb instead of
3.5 hours of labor to "clean it". A new 1 bbl carb is over $480 for this
1 cylinder Honda engine.

I'm taking it back to the dealer in the morning. It's now about 10 mph
shy of its normal top speed and takes a lot more throttle to get above
50, and the engine runs quite a bit hotter, indicating to me we have a
mixture or timing problem, now. I told the dealer's service mgr I was
PREPAID to get this bike fixed, properly. We'll see.....I'm not a happy
camper this past weekend.

For $632.11, I'll sue to get it fixed if it comes to that. Honda service
at any dealer in SC is a total ripoff.