im in the planning stages of a vw diesel based generator setup. once my house sells i will have some disposable income kicking around and i would like to build a diesel generator.
on ebay there are plenty of generator heads for sale at cheap prices and a friend of mine owns a cnc and a lathe. he will make me an adaptor to mate the genny head to a diesel crankshaft at no charge.
my problem is with the rpm governing. the genny head needs to be run at 1800 rpm. sence the automobile version of the bosch injection pump isnt really suited to maintaining speed like a lawnmower engine does, i was thinking that i could use one of those universal cruise control kits that cost around $50. if i hooked up the speed pickup to the vw engines flywheel or main pulley, it should effectively control the speed of the motor and maintain it at 1800 rpm. the problem with this is that i cannot simply "start" the generator and walk away. each time it is started i would have to manually bring it up to 1800 rpm and then set the cruise control and hope it doesnt kick out of cruise while im gone.
ideally, i would love to use an indistrial bosch injection pump which has a built in rpm maintaining governor, however i have no idea where to find one of these. (anyone have one that wouldnt mind selling or giving away?)
so my big question is, is there any way to modify a automobile injection pump to have an 1800rpm speed governor, or am i stuck with a universal cruise control kit?
they make vw diesel generators ..so you could get the right governor..for you engine..you could also run you engine at the other generator speed..blake is really really good with the generator's..he can answer many question..he works on then full time
his screen name is hillfolk.
Thanks
Deo
\x/ hillfolk!
All that is required to maintain 1800rpm is the proper spring for the governor. The automotive "spring capsule" is replaced by a single extension spring of the proper tension, rate and length. We have a mazda powered oliver 55 tractor at the shop that with a converted governor. It works quite well. It will hold speed on a PTO generator within 100rpm from no load to full load (15kw). We experimented with several springs (all from the hardware store...) before arriving at one that worked well. I'm sure that bosch makes a spring for this purpose, but the bosch dealers can't (won't?) look it up for you. Maybe Giles could chime in here, he's a bit more open minded than most bosch techs...
Electronic governor kits are available for this purpose as well but are spendy. Another alternative is the belt driven "hoof" style of governor that was used on older gasoline/propane/natural gas powered farm equipment and generators. This is simply a larger version of what it found inside the injection pump. The linkage is connected externally to the throttle lever on the injection pump. These work well enough but have a few drawbacks. They require mounting within reach of the injection pump and a belt drive from the crank and If the belt breaks they go wide open, not fun...
I have a governor assembly off of a 4BT pump if you need it. It's for 1100 rpm (2200 rpm crank speed).
i also have a 4bt gov. spring assembly that I don't need... its yours for experimentation if you want it...
what is a 4bt pump, and how much should i mail one of you to pay for the postage to 33411?
i would love to mess around with a real govenor and see if i can tweek it to 1800 rpms.