Friday I got some circuit breakers in the mail. Today I tried to "finish up" the neighbor's generator which killed a breaker. "Easy Fix" NOT NOT !!!!NOT!!!!
This is a "Deere" for which "Deere" charges dearly for ANY documentation. Turns out LOLOLOLOL It's made by HOMELITE!!!
There's one tiny 4 pin connector going into the electrical panel that connects the regulator board. Molex sort of plug. One wire fell off. It will not be a fun fix
Fuel tank was bone dry I did not think much of it at first. It's a typical big plastic tank and turns out the outlet valve has vibrated loose and leaks. Not even sure if it can be fixed
The Briggs recoil is a flaming POS. I'm talking about the "bendix drive" that screws onto the crank which MUST ROTATE EVERY second that thing runs, meaning it's a "high wear" item
The bolts holding the shroud were 2x missing and one mounting hole cracked broken clear out of the shroud. The outer part of the recoil is riveted, and 2X rivets were gone (Pop rivets!!!!) so I put two machine screws/ nuts in
I did get it to run
The original problem is complicated because the owner uses only the 120V outlets and THEY ALL COME OFF one side of the "line" on a 240V generator, so only half the machine is doing all the work, and it "killed" the breaker.
So I replaced the one bad breaker and did some rewiring to split the outlets so that one is on each side of the winding.
I ain't done yet, and it will never be a "new new new in the box"
View attachment 1715698653
Generic photo. I replaced the one bad breaker and added one. Think of this as the generator proper being the power pole drop to your house. It is a split winding, 120/120= 220V across the two.
But this was wired with ONE 15A breaker feeding BOTH the duplex outlets.
One was a 30A which fed the 3 prong 120V which is never used. That breaker went to a 20A feeding the 220V 4 prong at far right which is ALSO never used. The remaining side went through one 20A to feed the other side of the 220V outlet, and that side is what also fed the two 120V outlets.
I added one more to the far right and did a bit of rewiring, now one outlet is on the "red" side and the other is on the "black" side.
DO NOT EVER THINK, folks, that this is "high quality" stuff just because it carries the "Deere" name. it is Homelite. And it is not built to be "fixaticated"