Repair-It

Reconfirming that gas is still leaking past the needle valve, overflowing the bowl and pooling in the intake.

I believe my plan is to buy some valve lapping compound, shove a Q-tip into the end of my drill, dip it in a little compound, and lightly try to polish the seat in the carb. I would think that would allow the Viton-tipped needle to properly seat and seal. I may do this to my generator at some point, too, if it works. Hopefully I can get away with reusing all my gaskets on the Deutz. I feel like I've seen this trick on Mustie1 so probably worth a try as long as I use some care. As before I can still give up and just install an inline shutoff. Did not have one from the factory though, so given that the gas tank is higher than the carb, clearly this isn't supposed to be leaking past the needle valve by design.

Still need to do the alternator swap thing (hopefully the parts machine one works) and finish my positive battery cable ring terminal work.

Got my stuff. Probably handy to have... It is interesting. It's sort of a general purpose formulation. Starts at a coarse 120 grit and then progressively grinds down to 150, 180 and then 220. Not sure that's what I really want on something soft like brass so I'll just take it easy. It may not really grind down on brass actually...hmm. Unless the idea is it just sort of separates rather than the abrasive particles shrink down somehow.

Well hope the viton tipped needle can handle a 120 grit finished surface if that's what it does. Maybe I should have bought something finer.

https://nh.craigslist.org/grd/d/epsom-s ... 66728.html

Simplicity SunStar with 46" Blower - $1500 (Epsom)

condition: fair
make / manufacturer: Simplicity
model name / number: SunStar
1990 Simplicity SunStar Garden tractor with 46" snow blower. 1160 hours, runs & drives good. Snowblower works well. Spare parts for both tractor and blower.

This is pretty sweet. It is a predecessor to Bill's in some way. Sunstrand transmission, too. All hydraulic (power steering, too), shaft drive, rear PTO option, locking diff, all of that stuff. 2-stage thrower. $1500 is not a bargain however.

Put the new brake lever on my Simplicity. The pads seem pretty worn (the outer one was cracked) but I lubricated the pins (the pins actuate the pads) so I dunno, I guess it is back doing what it did before which is mostly hold. Should have taken pics. I backed it up onto ramps and worked on it that way.

Pulled the flywheel on the parts Simplicity using my Briggs puller. Worked well. It popped off the taper fairly loudly which startled me a bit. But I pulled it off and removed the alternator stator.

For the flywheel, I first had to remove the big nut (well pull the engine cover and fan guard ) . I happened to have a 32mm that fit but it is probably SAE. Still worked. Used my electric impact and it came off. Then remove the piece that has the threads for the fan guard and thread the nut back on until flush. I did have to chase the pulling threads with a 5/16-18 tap (I think that was it) since they had dirt and stuff caked in (despite blowing out first). Once I did that I was able to thread the silver bolts from the puller kit in with no issues.

Remove the 4 small bolts (1/4" head) holding down the alternator. Remove the lower shield (4 1/2" bolts) and lift out the alternator. The insulation at the base of the wires where it goes into the potting compound was cracked. I think I am better off to buy a new one at this point. Or I could just try it and see what it does.

Pulled the tie rod off the parts tractor. I sort of jammed some grease in the ball joint ends. I wish they were greaseable. I could drill and tap but that seems excessive. Also pulled the seat off the parts tractor as it is better than the Deutz seat.

Tomorrow I may pull apart the carb to see if I can polish the float valve seat. If that doesn't work I will just get a shutoff valve. I should get two, one for my generator also.

Decided to look at the alternator situation on the Deutz. Turns out I found a pretty obvious wiring issue on the headlights. See that loose wire? That was jammed under one of the headlight mount brackets. Which is equivalent to grounding to the hood (well, through the green paint). The thing is, that might have worked if the hood itself were grounded. So I cut it off, ran some 12 gauge to a bolt on the front of the engine (I think the exhaust manifold), soldered on a ring terminal and checked again.

Amazing, headlights now work. Well, mostly. It can't even muster 10V at full engine speed. Here is a very lousy picture of where I grounded the headlights. And by the way I tried momentarily connecting an additional ground wire to different grounds including battery ground and it made zero difference. So I think the issue is all on the production side, unless it is a ground where the stator bolts down to the engine, which I will check. You may ask, how many volts is it supposed to be? I think it is rated for 14V. Here is my Simplicity at full engine speed for comparison. Yeah, nearly 12V. 2V makes a pretty noticeable difference in brightness, just as it would on a car. If the charging system worked properly (well without an ammeter I guess I don't know for sure), I might leave it alone but it seems like there is a good chance of needing the headlights when using the snow blower attachment. And brighter is better. My Simplicity has a nice 2 pin plug for the headlights by the way. I have no idea if that is missing from the Deutz or a function of being one model year older. I can't really explain why this isn't putting out the full voltage. But for the charging issue, I know there is a diode in series on the DC circuit. If that diode were not functioning properly, it would probably result in an AC output and somewhat sinusoidal current which won't do a very good job charging the battery. I may be able to splice in a new diode if I can figure out what the spec is. Or try the alternator stator from the parts machine. Either way, time to get the flywheel off and take a look. I did also take a look at the connector for the alternator. It is a 2 pin plug. One pin does the AC output for the headlights. The other pin does the 3A DC battery charging. The ground is through the engine/chassis for both. I will have to check again but I measured the output at full speed unloaded and got some very odd results. Like maybe only 12V on the AC side and a largely AC signal on the DC side. That would suggest that the AC side is somehow a reduced output and the DC side has a diode issue in the plug. If I check again I will take pics and post it with details. Maybe it will be obvious when I remove the flywheel.

Now to put my 32mm socket on which fit the parts machine perfectly. Wait, what's this? It's a bigger nut??? Why, yes it is. 1-5/16" which needless to say, I do not have. I went to HF to buy a 3/4" drive SAE socket set which included 1-5/16" but they were OUT of them. Good god. So I bought a bunch of other stuff instead...this will have to wait I guess. Can still do the battery terminal or carb. And still haven't bought a fuel shut off valve yet.

Tackled the battery terminal. Here is my super jury rigged temporary solution which has not failed since I originally jammed it in there. This just won't do. Turns out I bought exactly the right ring terminal set from Napa. Perfect for the wire gauge and perfect for the terminal bolt. By eye/memory. Simplicity uses a decent gauge battery cable, too. Soldered using the torch attachment for my butane soldering iron. I should have crimped first. That was....an oversight. Fits great now.

Alright did my alternator test, unloaded. Full engine speed.

One pin did this:
12.957VAC About 320 Hz No DC component. Most likely this is the AC headlight windings. I would have expected higher unloaded.

The other pin did this:
16.917VAC 320.3 Hz And look at this. 12.712VDC. Right now I think I am operating on the theory that the diode in the alternator plug is no good and that is why the charging performance sucks. Makes me want to build a bridge rectifier. Instead of the diode dumping the negative portion of the sinewave, it could add charging capacity, which would be good with the bigger battery. Wonder if anyone has done this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diode_bri ... cation.svg Top sinusoidal is the native output of the alternator. And in fact a set of windings sends this native AC directly to the headlights. Another set of windings initially makes this sine waveform.
Then the middle graph I believe is the result of a single diode that they install in the harness/plug. Half rectified and evidently good enough for 3 amps.
The bottom graph is full rectification and would be the result of a 4 diode bridge which I can certainly rig up...

This may be an interesting science experiment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFheRGS58PI

When I get my 1-5/16" socket, I can pull the flywheel and continue the diagnosis/repair. Mainly because I really can't work on the harness with it installed on the engine. Until then...

Or I don't even need to make it.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q5MJBJD/re ... f29dc49ff2

I can just put terminals on some wires and run them where they need to go. Namely:
- Two of them go to chassis/engine ground
- One goes to the AC input side of the alternator
- The last one goes to the DC output side (to battery, or into tractor harness)

This is actually cheaper than buying individual diodes.

And if I wire on the tractor harness side I may be able to do it without removing the alternator. Though it sort of goes with the alternator...

Wonder if there is any way to see if those are rated for outdoors? Wouldn't want them to get all rusted.