[SEL] Starting Stover - Need Help

[Paul Maples]

Ok Gang I need some advice. About three weeks ago after getting my 1905 Vertical 5 HP Stover all together I took it to my friends house about 60 miles from me and we attempted to start it. The engine had been rebuilt inside and out. They got it started but it would not stay running and we found that the engine was starving for gas and the fuel pump was the problem. I had rebuilt the fuel pump which included having a new brass plunger made, new plunger spring, and new check balls however I did not rework the ball seats so gas was leaking around the check balls and not keeping the carb full of gas.

I left the fuel pump with my friend as he is a machinist and he told me he would rework the seats. He called me yesterday and told me the fuel pump was ready and he had checked it out and it pumped good and the check balls were sealing off. I went and picked up the fuel pump today.

I installed the fuel pump and wired up the engine. I manually pumped the fuel pump until fuel ran out of the overflow hole on the carb. I then opened the needle valve about 3/4 to 1 turn and started trying to turn the engine over. The engine has so much compression that the only way I can turn it over is by opening the compression release. After a few turns it started and ran for about 10 seconds and then started to die, I quickly put my hand over the choke and it came back to life which told me it was a gas problem. After numerous exercises of pumping up the gas and then starting it and then it dying I started it and when it died I immediately disconnected the brass union on the fuel line between the fuel pump and the carb to see if gas was standing in this tube as it should be and it was not.This told me that for some reason the check balls were not seating in the fuel pump once again.

I have long suspected that the new plunger spring I installed could be the problem. In order for the spring to work I had to widen the bottom three coils to allow room for the check ball to go up inside of the spring when the spring was compressed. When I opened (widened)  up the bottom three coils of the spring to make room for the check ball to go up inside I got the bottom coils off center from the rest of the spring. Also upon inspecting the spring I noted that the very bottom coil was a little smaller than the two coils above it. I surmised that the bottom coils being off center to the rest of the spring was causing the coil to cock a little when compressed and was interfering with the seating of the ball. In a static test that my friend had conducted on the fuel pump this situation would not have shown up as in a static test he did not compress and releasing the spring, he just poured gas in the fuel pump and watched it to see if it leaked down and it did not. I reworked the bottom three coils on the spring, centered these coils with the rest of the spring and put it all back together. I put the pump back on and this seemed to fix the problem. The fuel pump now keeps the fuel bowl on the carb full all the time and you can even open the little petcock I put on the carb in place of the 3/8" overflow plug and you will get gas running out of it even though the engine is not running so now the bowl stays full and I have taken care of the gas problem.

After several more attempts to try and start it, in which I now was flooding the engine because it was getting plenty of gas and I was over choking it, and also once I discovered that the ignitor linkage had locked up once due to everything being too tight, I finally got all of these bugs worked out and the engine started. It was blowing dark black smoke which told me it was flooding so I slowly started screwing the needle valve in. The engine stopped smoking and speeded up tremendously so much so that the whole engine started jumping up and down. This scared me so I pulled the wire off of the battery.

I started it again and again it would  blow black smoke and as I turned the needle valve in the engine would really speed up hitting on every stroke and getting faster and faster and jumping up and down. Also it was blowing fire out the exhaust. It jumped so much that it bent the front axle on the cart. Each time I did an emergency shutdown.

I have now got to decide what is wrong, is the speed control knurl nut on the side of the block out of adjustment, is the governor not working properly, is the spring on the flyweights too weak, etc.

If you have any ideas please let me know meanwhile I will start trying to eliminate each possibility.

Thanks for all of the help.

Paul