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Scooby’s threshold for entertainment is very low.

The consensus seems to be change the oil (I’m using synthetic in the new gen) and adjust the valves and they may run forever although there are no guarantees because the quality control is low. Cheers and good luck!

It’s a Peerless 820. It’s used by some of the guys that race lawnmowers from what I understand. I bought a locking spool from EC Carburetors for exactly that. They’re available in quite a few mowers but vary widely in the number a ratio of gears and also the rotation as some are mounted with the drive pulley on top and others with the entire box flipped upside down and the pulley on the bottom.

Thank you for watching and thank for your thoughtful and kind comments. As one of my favorite radio hosts says, no one wants to hear that but me. Indeed, I’ve embraced this project as quite a bit more than a cyclekart. My background is in building construction but my passion is metal fabrication. I’ve built everything from carousels to race cars to fine art. I can feel this project drawing on all of that past experience. My wife and i recently purchased a new house with a nice sized workshop. The shop is large but has needed some serious cleaning up and painting and this had really slowed the project. That said, that work is done and now it’s back to full speed ahead on the cyclekart and our predator 459 swapped golf cart which I’ll be sharing in a future episode. Cheers!

Sorry for the confusion. On our end the generator is both the engine and the inverter. Teardown of the electronics beyond the scope of this video is above our technology as they are fully potted. Good luck in your search.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. 2.5 x 365 x 24 = 21,900 is my math. I wish you well on your mathematical journey. ✌️

Better go back to the school you learned math from and ask for a refund, because 2.5 years @ 24 hrs/day is over 20,000 hours.

I can’t speak to this. I believe they are very similar but have no specific knowledge.

Thank you! Cheers!

Thanks bro. I’m just as excited as you are to see it coming together. I have all the materials on hand except one last McMaster Carr order for the balance of the bushings and hardware. Should be working months. Cheers!

We have something around $25k invested including the bus. Of course that doesn’t account for the approximately 3000 man hours of labor… Thanks for watching!

Thank you! Cheers!

There are three speeds in the transmission plus reverse. Final drive in top gear will net 65mph but the presently bone stock 6.5 predator will not get there. I’m shooting for 4500 rpm in first which will net about 35 mph. Thanks so much for your interest.

@@bluewhaleadventures152 Good to know. I've been messing around with an idea for a front engined gn/frazer-nash/chater lea 1913, monster grafton type build (basically a special homemade racing cyclecar). I even thought of using bicycle gears so that I could somewhat mimic the frazer nash chain drive 4 speed. Depending on gearing theoretically it could get 60-90mph (depending on 3:1 vs 2:1 finial gear ratio) at stock predator governed rpm of 3600. Really would be a death trap and I have no idea how I would get it to not explode the bicycle chains needed so may be slower on finial. Also made the decision if I will build it to go with a wildcat 223 engine for the reason you mentioned with the predator. I never even thought of doing a lawnmower transmission so you definitely have a better idea then me. Plus you have some beautiful bodywork on your kart. Looking forward to videos of it running.

@@questofknowledge8788 Sounds like a great project. I’ll keep my eyes open for it.

I haven’t but I’ll be checking it out. 👍 Cheers!

Thanks so much. ✌️✌️✌️

The skylights are custom insulated glass panels. They are 1/2” tempered on the outside for walkability and 1/4” laminated glass on the inside in case the worst happens. They sit on custom welded 1” square tubing that was insulated an covered in 18ga sheet metal panels. Thanks for watching!

Ha! Well it used about 5 gallons every two days. Using that rate it’d be about 2000 gallons.

​@@bluewhaleadventures152That's a pretty expensive power bill

The load was varying from idle to 100% with an approximately 30% average. It rarely ran at full load for more than a half hour or so. I believe 10’s of thousands of hours, given regular maintenance.

I honestly can’t speak to parts and/or engine availability. IMHO, unless you run it continuously and neglect most if not all maintenance, and if you use a quality oil such as Amsoil, I doubt you’ll ever have to contemplate replacement.

There’s a cast iron liner cast into the block. ✌️

Wow! That makes it better than consumer-grade Hondas with their specially-treated aluminum bore (and air filter housings that leak). Thank you for the info.

As another person mentioned in their comment, the QC on these units in no bueno. This one used enough oil to trigger the low oil shutdown about every two to three weeks, or about 500 hours. The one I replaced it with uses much less oil.

I did a oil change and it triggered the low oil sensor.It doesnt start when sensor is “sensing” whether enuf oil or not. So I disabled it, and then it burned a lot of oil, then had mechanical damage of course. so be quiet careful when you tweak with these things.

Thank you! Cheers!

My apologies for the slow response my friend. You are correct that the “plans” I showed here are just the baseline. I have continued to sketch and develop the individual parts as needed prior to fabrication. These days, I like to have a very clear idea where I’m going before I begin cutting metal. The wood chassis is just for mock up. I will be building it from 3x1x16ga steel tubing in forthcoming episodes. Thanks for watching. Please let me know if I’ve answered your question fully.

To be honest, I think you’d be well advised to follow one of the more formulaic cyclekart build videos on TH-cam. Mine is very much a one off in terms of the design. There are many available but Steve Vinson among others, does a great job.

@@bluewhaleadventures152 ok thanks

You joke, the one I had before this ran for about ten months straight and then stopped. Still being inside the one year warranty I took it back and they exchanged it for this one. Apparently most don’t use their generators like I do or they’d have a warranty nightmare on their hands.

@@bluewhaleadventures152 Give Amsoil holler see if they would participate longevity enduro on new gen. They like that

Truth brother. The two greatest issues I’ve had with HF over the years have been that initial setup and fiddling is required and quality control is non existent. Cheers!

The rings and bore were massively worn. It would still stumble along but would not run smoothly despite all of my regular efforts. There was no catastrophic failure although I’m sure it wasn’t far off given the state. Considering the hours (and cognizant of the lack of maintenance) I replaced it. Thanks for watching!

If you ran Amsoil, changed it every 1000 hours and adjusted the valves, these generators would likely last most users well past their lifetimes. IMHO Peace!

@@bluewhaleadventures152 no change oil three times in first few hours and purchase wen magnetic dip stick in beginning. Break in like others suggest then switch Amsoil 30 in summer 10w30 winter change oil every 100 hours or so or what amsoil suggests once month? twice year lol

Ha! Yep, me, Zach! I’ve already showed my three year old daughter how to change the oil more than once and also given her stern lectures on the importance of being a contributing member of the family and small engine maintenance but she just doesn’t seem to care. 😀 I do appreciate that you’ve taken the time to both watch and comment.

I thought 2000 hours was a lot.

It is a lot lol there is no way that has more than 400 hrs on it.

Thanks for watching!

These are both beautiful cars. I don’t think you could go wrong with either. In many ways, the body would’ve been much easier for me in metal than wood/fiberglass, but I just couldn’t reconcile that with the spirit of budget racing. It really opens a Pandora’s box wherein it’s hard to say no to an increasingly expensive next set of parts. Thanks for watching. Good luck with YOUR project.

Wow. Thanks for the kind words. We will have to wait to see what blows up around here for the next teardown. Yes, your understanding of the oiling is correct. Dipper on the crank and oil mist to the top end.

This week I’m about to do a teardown on a 2000 W unit so stay tuned to my channel.

It’s lithium and tucked up under the seat with the electrics. Cheers!

Happy to spread the love. Make sure to introduce yourself if you see us. I’d love to check out your rig.

Thank you for the very kind words. I (Zach) have a long background in fabrication and Katie has a commercial interior design degree. We work well together. Cheers!

It is 20” wide at the cowl. That is also going to be the outside frame width. The grille is 11” wide. Thanks for your interest.

Dealer rep for ACD? Now that guy must’ve seen some neat stuff and met some interesting people. I’m familiar with bending plywood. The price and availability out here in the woods of Oregon is not what it could be. It’s a great tip though. The stuff I’ve used in the past would’ve wrapped around those contours like cardboard. Cheers!

Ha! Small engine repair instructional videos aren’t really what I do here, although IRL I seem to get to do a heck of a lot of it. AND, there are so many great channels on TH-cam that already do this so well. Not really sure I did that great a teardown vid but thought there might be something to share with such a high hour unit. Thanks for watching!

need wen magnetic dip sticks change first oil first hour

how do you know how many hours you kept it running ?

@@vandweleer8004 I put an hour meter on mine when I got it out of the box

@@vandweleer8004 I put an hour meter on mine when it was new

Nope. Sorry, I’d have given it to you. After finishing the video I still had thoughts of rebuilding it myself but quickly realized the bore was nearly 020” out of round and abandoned that plan. Keep watching, in another 2-1/2 years I’ll have a new 20,000 hour teardown video of its replacement. 😹 Cheers!

We have since installed frosted film on the glass wall. The other question we’ve often gotten is about the curtains. They weren’t yet installed for this video.