Generator Guys/Small Engine guys

[Pete7072]

I have a Premier Pow'r Guard ( bought out by Baldor ) R45 4500/4000 Generator. I got this when I bought my house a few years ago. Has 124 hours on it. Always maintained, by my father. Since I've acquired it about 5 years ago, I've ran it every couple of months as a general maintenance. With the possibility that Hurricane Mathew runs up the east coast, I took it out to make sure everything was good to go. Ran into a problem. The thing will not come off of Auto Idle. It is producing electricity, and I can manually hold the throttle open, and generator power increases. I checked the manual online, and ran through the checks, IE; ground connection, and idle on Carb. The auto idle piston will open up when I manually hold throttle open, but will not stay open. Any suggestions ?

[J-Mech]

Don't you have to put a load on it to get it to come off auto idle? Did you try plugging something like a shop vac into it and turning it on?

[Pete7072]

Originally Posted by J-Mech

Don't you have to put a load on it to get it to come off auto idle? Did you try plugging something like a shop vac into it and turning it on?

Yes and no. If you rurn the auto idle switch off, it will run full power. If the switch is on, and you put a load on, it will auto run at full power, and throttle down when the load is removed.. I turned the switch off, and nothing. Put a load on with switch on and the off and it stayed at idle.

[J-Mech]

I'm familiar with gen sets.... but the particular brand you have I do not recall ever working on.

Is the switch electric, or vacuum operated?
Sounds like that is where the issue is....

[Pete7072]

Originally Posted by J-Mech

I'm familiar with gen sets.... but the particular brand you have I do not recall ever working on.

Is the switch electric, or vacuum operated?
Sounds like that is where the issue is....

This is the exact unit I own. Apparently Baldor bought them out. I can't find parts for it. The switch is electric.Robin/Subaru motor

[Sam Mac]

I'd check the fuse's or circuit breakers. Then I'd look for a bad connection in the idle circuit. Did a google search "Pow'r Guard R45 4500/4000 Generator" and found this.

http://www.baldor.com/Shared/manuals/g00269-303.pdf

If you can't fix the problem I'd look for a way to simply bypass to idle solenoid. Just make sure that the governor can still control the engine speed.

[ol'George]

Don't know if this will help or not:
I have an old miller welder/ power generator.
It can be started with 12V battery or rope start.
If a battery in not connected, or is dead, it can be rope started, and will run normally, but the solenoid controlled throttle will not work.

[Sam Mac]

Did a little more digging. Looks like they were sold to Baldor and then Baldor sold them to Generac. Looks like the idle control is a Subaru item, see the last link. From what I can see it looks like if you can't fix it, it should be easy to unhook it and just run it at rated high speed. Probably 3600 RPM's.

Pow'r Guard R45 4500/4000 Generator
http://www.baldor.com/Shared/manuals/g00269-303.pdf

Baldor sold to Generac
http://www2.baldor.com/products/generators.asp

Subaru manual (See page 57)
http://www.subarupower.com/media/man...5847749310.pdf

[J-Mech]

After quickly looking through the information that Sam postsed, I imaging that you either have a bad connection, or the idle module has failed. (BIG THANKS to Sam for doing all that research. I really didn't have time.) It didn't surprise me that there is a module for the idle control, I just didn't know how advanced a machine it was.

Look through the manuals and see if you can fix it. If not, yes a generator always runs at 3600 RPM. Just as Sam suggested, disable the idle control and set it to run that fast.

[Pete7072]

See, this is why I love this page. You get honost answers, and not a bunch of people who are experts, trying to belittle you. Tomorrow is my first day off, and Ill let you guys know what happens.