Hey motor heads, I have a issue I haven’t run into before. I acquired a Honda 2k inverter, yay! The issue is that it barely runs and smokes quite a bit. My thought was stuck rings. So I checked compression 30 psi. No bueno, off come the shrouding and little screws. I was thinking stuck rings so I took the carb and exhaust off everything looked good. Dive in deeper and found the exhaust valve is burned, valve seal is gone. The head and cylinder are one piece. Can the valve seat just be lapped? It’s tough to get a pic down the cyl.
Not familiar with those inverter genny's.. but I'd certainly try lapping it. You've certainly nothing to lose at this point. Best of luck
Hard to say from that pic but it almost looks beyond lapping... Bigger question is how bad is the valve guide? The valve stem needs to fit like a piston in the cylinder or the new one will burn up in no time too. Everything being aluminum these days, I'm assuming there is a steel/cast iron seat & sleeve in there? If you try lapping it, I guess the worst thing that can happen is it doesn't work too well or doesn't last a long time but you never know till you try. Personally, I'd be looking to see how much a new cylinder/head would cost. May not be too much.
To my surprise the “barrel” assembly looks like it could be had for under 200$. Its aluminum, cly, head and engine case all one piece. There is a cast valve guide. Looking at parts diagrams it looks like there is no valve seal on the exhaust side? Kinda strange? These generators get used and abused all day long the only maintenance they get is oil topped up and add gas. Poking around theses things are supposed to have valve adjustments every 200 hours. Lol. This thing has thousands of hours on it. I’m sure the valve burned because they were never adjusted. I’m gonna just replace the valve/spring and lap the seat and see what happens. Under 40$ and my time.
Well after checking on parts at 2 local Honda dealers(one guy laughed at me) parts will need to be ordered. I can do that at half the price they want. It’s raining and the kids are watching a movie. So, I’m gonna do the best with what I have and see what happens. I only have to partially assemble to see if I can get some more squeeze. When I worked at a dealership I didn’t fully understand people’s hatred, now I’m starting to see it. “you only want to spend 20$ here, talk to me when you want to spend 20k”. Forget them I’m going to make this work as cheap as possible just because.
Best I can tell from the picture the valve doesn't look to be burned up. It's sometimes easier to power lap in the valve by driving the stem end with a rubber hose and a electric drill. As far as the lack of valve adjustments I don't think it caused the problem as it usually causes the valve to open late, not fully open and close earlier.
The valve actually gets its heat removed by the seat/head when closed. Now if the valve face is worn or the seat is worn or hammered into the head then clearance in the valve train is reduced and it will cause the valve to not fully close and that will overheat and burn the valve let alone cause compression loss. If you have a air hose you can attach to a broken sparkplug leave the rockers off and pressurize the cylinder and see what leaks.
She runs a circular saw! Not worth fixing, bah! Total cost 2$ for a carb gasket that tore on disassembly. Unfortunately the timing belt is cracked so I’ll have to do some backtracking but I didn’t want to buy the belt not knowing it will work. I’m pumped I have an off gird cabin that I usually drag a 5 k up to but this will be a back saver!
Looks like you have this under control already...at first I was going to say that the low compression may be an illusion if it has an auto decomp valve. I'd have to think long and hard if I ever had to replace a burnt valve on any Honda OPE/bike/quad before...guess if it has major hours on it and the valve adjustment was never done, could happen. Tie up the loose ends, give 'er some love, that bugger will do you right. Those Honda inverter gennys are legendary...
