small 6-8hp diesel engines

[hazmat]

<font color="blue">Bio-diesel is very well filtered vegetable cooking oil. Mostly using a waste cooking oil from fast food restaurants for deep fat fryers--i.e., french fries. </font>

Yes & No. You can "brew your own" but there is "real" bio-diesel out there. Check out this site biodiesel.org

 

[TOMLESCOEQUIP]

Is your generator direct coupled to the b & s engine ?? The reason I ask is that most generators are set up to use the engine as the 2nd bearing. The engines have a special output shaft 4-1/8 " long <font color="red"> (called a generator taper) </font> that is tapered to fit inside the armature of the gen and the windings are secured with a long bolt going into the crankshaft. These are known as single bearing generators. A double bearing generator head unit typically has a keyed output shaft that can be driven by pulley/belt arrangement or a direct coupling such as a lovejoy type with two metal halves and a rubber or nylon insert. Before you buy any engine to replace what you have, you need to be sure which shaft or generator type you have. A local dealer near me is selling new 5500 watt electric start diesel generators for around $1500. Before you spend around $1000 for the engine alone, you might want to check them out. If you want more info, send me a pm. A friend of mine just bought one of these during our latest ice storm and I helped him wire it in........ small diesel generators ..He seems satisfied with it so far............Tom

 

[Egon]

At the prices quoted for a diesel generator set it hardly pays to try and add on a different motor to an existing generator.

The old Lister type engines are intriquing. The same type ony running on propane has powered many an oilfield pumpjack on 24/7/52 basis with few problems. There were other similar makes around. The carberation for propane wasn't the best. In cold weather we used to remove the sparkplug and heat it up with a lighter to aid in start up. But that's getting off topic.

Egon

 

[gws]

I agree, at a $1000 its not worth it, but if I can get an engine at the right price then it would.

Tom: The genset head I have is a DYNA and it has the second bearing on it and this is shaft coupled so an engine swap is possible. I know the cheap colemans are single bearing based.

 

[TOMLESCOEQUIP]

Gary..........I just didn't want to see you purchase an engine you wouldn't be able to use.........many people think all "briggs" are the same........yanmar & hatz both make small 9 hp aircooled diesels. I've had the Hatz on a couple small asphalt rollers..........they're bullet proof............

 

[Taylortractornut]

I had a truck sales book with an ad in it that sold Kama Diesel engines 4 to 18 horsepower. I think they were in the 4 to 800 dollar range with the 5 hp at about 500 dollars.

 

[kensfarm]

"but if I can get an engine at the right price then it would."

Maybe an old diesal tractor that the engine runs but has other problems could be had cheaper..