Have a craftsman 5600 generator with briggs 10hp engine. started it a few days ago and it ran a few minutes then sputtered and stopped. I removed the carb and cleaned it careful not to loose the spring or float pin and reassembled the unit. Removed the gas tank, drained it and refilled with new gas. Started the unit on second pull and it is screaming wide open. Thought about gaskets being damaged so i cut new gaskets and tried again. same story... looking for some advice on governor even though I didn't touch it, it seems like it is not working correctly.

 

If you had the carb off there is a good chance you didn't reconnect the linkage correctly.
In this case a nice close picture of your carb linkage would let us see what the problem is.

http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...-pictures.html

 

It doesn't sound like air leaks, but the governor isn't hooked up or at least properly.

With it running can you manually shut it down with the carburetor throttle?

 

i can manually close the carb or reduce the rpm but when i release the linkage it screams... i didn't touch the linkage prior to this problem... all springs seem present. only one connecting point from carb so it's hard to imagine i got that wrong.

 

i'll get a picture and load it this evening, the model is 204412 briggs 10 hp, type 0147e1

 

briggs pictures

 

Excellent pics

The connections look correct. When the engine isn't running the throttle remains open... and it is.
When it starts, the governor should force it closed.

In the pic below.... I circled the governor shaft...... is the bracket tight to that shaft ?

 

Now that the engine has over-speeded to the max, most likely the governor has come apart from centrifugal force necessitating engine teardown and governor replace. Parts aren't very high, just quite a bit of labor.

RR

 

i loosened the bolt and removed the linkage to the gov shaft... the shaft seems to rotate freely about 270 degees then stop, no resistance, not sure what it should feel like when operating correctly

 

I wanted you to check and see if that connection was tight..... not to loosen it up.

Now comes the fun part to get the linkage and the shaft back in in it's correct location.

To reset the governor..... hold the throttle all the way open. Turn the governor shaft counterclockwise until it stops. Now tighten the nut up. Give it a try.

How it works.....
When you start the engine, the governor assembly, which is a centrifugal weight inside the engine, starts spinning. The centrifugal force pushes the weight outward, exerting pressure on the governor shaft and turning it, trying to push the throttle linkage to the slow position. The point at which the force of the flyweight equals the force of the governor spring and holds the engine at a steady speed is called the governed speed.

 

It requires teardown and governor replace. If you are engine repair experienced, can talk you through the procedure. If not, then take it to a repair facility. Engine must be separated from generator and then have crankcase side cover removed to gain access to governor.

RR

 

I suggest re-adjusting the governor to see if it will work. I have seen many times engines that revved full speed and still worked fine when things got together the way they were supposed to. It could be that yours came apart when the governor arm moved away from the hat inside the engine when the carb was off. If so, then you will have to take the crankcase cover off and replace the governor. It's very easy.

 

i believe i can reset the linkage, but would like to diagnose the governor without diassembling the engine.... what should the governor shaft act like when i move it by hand??? Ok I reassembled the unit, reset the governor and same story, just over revving the engine immediately.

 

It will feel about the same no matter if the internal governor came apart or not. If you reset it and it does not try to throttle back when the engine starts, it is bad internally.

 

when you say came apart... do you mean there maybe some pieces in the lower engine i can fish out or see in the oil... i'd like to avoid splitting the case any way to dianose this would be great

 

[QUOTEwhen you say came apart... do you mean there maybe some pieces in the lower engine i can fish out or see in the oil... i'd like to avoid splitting the case any way to dianose this would be great ][/QUOTE]

If you can get ahold of a small magnet on a flexible shaft, you might snag one of the counterweights that came off the governor long enough to convince you the engine needs disassembled and governor replaced. Go through oil fill hole and see what you can snag.
Run the engine and get one of these loose weights between crankshaft and camshaft gears and see just how much scrap metal you can produce. You have been given excellent advice from at least three experienced small engine mechanics and yet you hesitate to follow through.

I did one of these after some teenage boys hung the throttle wide open and destroyed governor. I am coming at you from real experience. If I still had that governor, I would send you a pic of it.

RR

 

I think the linkage to the carb is 180degrees off, remove the linkage, turn the butterfly 180 degrees and reattach, when the governor is trying to close the butterfly it is actually trying to pull it further open. Have a good one. Geo

 

I thought that too upon first glance, but looking closer, you can see that the throttle stop is on the correct side of the idle screw.

 

I think I would isolate the problem between the linkage/carburetor and the governor itself.

Disconnect the linkage from the governor arm to the carburetor so you can manually control everything. Then start it up and run the rpms up and down to see if the governor arm moves back and forth to control the carb. If it doesn't the problem is inside the governor and plan on dismantling it.

If it does move back and forth with the rpms, you know the problem is in the linkage to the carburetor or how the carb was assembled.

Is the picture of the the carb/governor control arm with the engine running or stopped?

With the control arm from the governor disconnected and the engine not running can you turn the throttle stop all the way to the idle speed screw?

 

the unit was not running when picture was taken. i can push the linkage closed, meaning over to idle screw but the spring returns it to the current position. I disconnected the linkage arm to the governor and the engine runs fine, i can control the the rpm manually. the governor shaft that is exposed spins freely.

 

I thought maybe you had the throttle plates out of the shaft and something along the lines of the idea Geo had would have made the fix a little easier. Since you can move the throttle stop against the speed set that wouldn't be the case.

I believe you'll have to dismantle the governor to fix that one. It sounds like the governor shaft doesn't have anything left on it. An internal workings would have flyweights that expand and contract to move the governor shaft. The springs you see on the out side would move the lever to contract the flyweight mechanism and the rotation of the flyweights would expand and turn the shaft against the springs to control the carburetor and the speed of the engine.

There are other external varieties with air vanes and then two strokes with none at all.

I don't know how difficult the fix would be on that model. Other guys here may have worked on those.

 

I have dismantled a 10 hp briggs gentec engine (unit was running wide open with no control). I posted a question back a few weeks about this and the general idea was it had an internal problem with the engine.

It is dismantled now and what should i be looking for... the plastic (light colored) gear is completed, not missing teeth. the weights are both there and move freely. the down shaft is complete and doesn't seem affected.

 

There is very little here that can be wrong... inspection should reveal the problem. If the governor inside is intact and able to move the linkage, then the problem lies with the linkage or carburetor. Without being able to inspect it all ourselves, you'll have to follow the parts and see how it all works together until the problem reveals itself.

 

A few weeks ago, I asked several direct questions before dismantling this engine and betweeen yourself and a few others, the combined idea was to dismantle the engine it had to be internal... now your reversing your opinion and saying it must be the linkage or carb.

 

Here is a link to engine parts pictorial.
Locate part# 693578 pictorial# 219 and see if you have all the pieces shown.

Illustrated Parts List

The leg of governor L rod (pictorial# 616) should contact the hollow tube with washer on the governor gear. Throttle should be in wide open position at this time, tighten governor arm to governor L and you should be good to go.

RR

 

"A few weeks ago, I asked several direct questions before dismantling this engine and betweeen yourself and a few others, the combined idea was to dismantle the engine it had to be internal... now your reversing your opinion and saying it must be the linkage or carb."

Yeah, pretty much... based on what YOU tell us. We have to go by what you say to come to our conclusions since we can't be there to look at it and see what went wrong. If you can throttle the engine down by hand, but after setting the governor properly (?), the governor offers no resistance at all, then that points to an internal problem (it still does, nothing outside can keep the governor from trying to rotate the shaft if it is assembled correctly inside). If you opened the engine up and the governor is fine, then I guess it must be something else. Since there are only a very few limited things that could actually cause this problem, then we have to go back to the other possibilities. You didn't show a picture of the internal parts, so we really don't know. You might put it all back together and we end up telling you it's an internal problem again, who knows. If that is un-acceptable, you are welcome to a full refund.

I am merging this with your old thread to provide continuity and reference so that we can have all the available details at our disposal. This is a very simple system with few parts. With the governor internals exposed, it should be very easy to find the problem. If the gears, flyweights, and hat are intact and fine on the internal governor and the lever that passes through the block is fine, then we have to go back to the outer components again.

 

I have only worked on B&S engines for over 50=FIFTY YEARS. Was trained by FACTORY MASTER TECH.
Only have to look at one of your pics to see A SPRING IS MISSING!
I love it when people who have a small database act like they have a LARGE database(comes from 2000yo Chinese saying)
Install counter spring to help close throttle,,,,,THEN loosen pinch lever clamp and turn shaft to idle position(you can do this by1 pull plug2turn shaft all way counterclockwise3spin engine fast. If a little movement=ok return to zero and clamp if no movement turn all way opposite.
P.S. The guys talking about governor "Flyaway" some know some do not;but dump oil from crankcase jijjle engine around=if you hear noise dump it to oil drain hole=see anything=split case-it ain't hard i've done 100's just get your gaskets and permatex#2. GL

P.S. Get return spring in lower right from B&S BECAUSE ALL SPRINGS ARE CALIBRATED AS TO LOAD AND RESONANCE FREQUENCY