macona
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- Beaverton, OR
Last week I drove up to Maryville, WA from Portland to pick up an old PU-26A/U generator with the willys L134. I need it to run a large power supply for an electron beam gun in one of my vacuum systems. Running a 10kv @ 1.5a power supply off of single phase in a house does not work...
Anyway, picked it up and brought it down. It was $550 with 1127 hours and has been converted to propane. Its in pretty decent shape, I am missing a couple pieces of sheet metal which should not be too hard to recreate, these things seem very rare and I doubt I will find those parts. It is also missing the exhaust from the manifold on and the oil bowl for the air cleaner, I am trying to find the exhaust off a PE-95, it looks identical so I am hoping to find someone who has parted one out.
I changed all the coolant hoses and checked the thermostat and everything is good. After finally getting the thing running, there was dried mud in the propane line I noticed some valve leak noise in the exhaust. I popped off the side cover and adjusted the valves, this helped a lot but there still was a lot escaping and after running a load on the generator I was hearing some noise from the front of the engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wo08c19990
Saturday I grabbed a compression tester and put it on, a bit over 100PSI on 2, 3, and 4 and 30PSI on #1. So I yanked the head. Everything looks fine on the #1 exhaust valve until I touch it, it wobbles all over the place. I grabbed the spring compressor and removed the retainers, rotator, and spring. I found the end of the valve is bent! I am guessing some time in the past the valve had locked up and got bent then someone decided to break it loose with vise grips!
I managed to get the valve out with a pry bar and made up a guide remover and yanked out the guide, it was .025" over at .4". Yikes... Parts are ordered now, just get to play the waiting game.
PU-26A/U valve job by Jerry Biehler, on Flickr
Anyway, picked it up and brought it down. It was $550 with 1127 hours and has been converted to propane. Its in pretty decent shape, I am missing a couple pieces of sheet metal which should not be too hard to recreate, these things seem very rare and I doubt I will find those parts. It is also missing the exhaust from the manifold on and the oil bowl for the air cleaner, I am trying to find the exhaust off a PE-95, it looks identical so I am hoping to find someone who has parted one out.
I changed all the coolant hoses and checked the thermostat and everything is good. After finally getting the thing running, there was dried mud in the propane line I noticed some valve leak noise in the exhaust. I popped off the side cover and adjusted the valves, this helped a lot but there still was a lot escaping and after running a load on the generator I was hearing some noise from the front of the engine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wo08c19990
Saturday I grabbed a compression tester and put it on, a bit over 100PSI on 2, 3, and 4 and 30PSI on #1. So I yanked the head. Everything looks fine on the #1 exhaust valve until I touch it, it wobbles all over the place. I grabbed the spring compressor and removed the retainers, rotator, and spring. I found the end of the valve is bent! I am guessing some time in the past the valve had locked up and got bent then someone decided to break it loose with vise grips!
I managed to get the valve out with a pry bar and made up a guide remover and yanked out the guide, it was .025" over at .4". Yikes... Parts are ordered now, just get to play the waiting game.
PU-26A/U valve job by Jerry Biehler, on Flickr