Golf cart Starter / Generator

F

f350ca

Forum Guest
Register Today
I acquired a Hitachi starter / generator off a Yamaha golf cart. I want to repurpose it to crank a twin cylinder Wisconsin that I plan on using on a firewood processor. Its a Model GSB107-02 .I need to know the recommended operating speed for these so I can design the belt drive. Want to give the starter as much advantage as I can without over speeding it when the engine is operating. Can find all sorts of them for sale when i do a search but nothing for specs, Hitachi's site looks hopeless. Anyone have any experience with these.
Thanks
Greg
 
f350ca said:
I acquired a Hitachi starter / generator off a Yamaha golf cart. I want to repurpose it to crank a twin cylinder Wisconsin that I plan on using on a firewood processor. Its a Model GSB107-02 .I need to know the recommended operating speed for these so I can design the belt drive. Want to give the starter as much advantage as I can without over speeding it when the engine is operating. Can find all sorts of them for sale when i do a search but nothing for specs, Hitachi's site looks hopeless. Anyone have any experience with these.
Thanks
Greg
Click to expand...
What model Wisconsin engine are you planning to start this way? If it is a TJD or other parallel twin, I think you will have difficulty making it work--likely it will not have enough torque at a reasonable drive ratio, and those engines don't have any sort of compression release. I once had a Wisconsin AENL with a starter/generator and it was marginal. Anyway--good luck with the project.
 
I have an old Wisconsin 10 hp single (TR10D) which has a similar starter on it. The pulley on the flywheel is about 9.5" in diameter and the motor pulley is about as small as it can be I would GUESS the ratio is about 6-1. I have had the tractor for about 25 years, the starter/ generator has been a continual source of problems. It's a bad generator and a worse starter. It's a Delco and the Hitachi one may be better, but, as suggested above, I would really question if it's got enough torque to swing a twin w/o compression release. I would search pretty hard to see if there's another way to do what you need to do before blowing a lot of time and effort on a starter generator. It may be a away to do the job, but based on my experience, it will be marginal and there are other ways.
 
Will have to test it to see but Im thinking this unit might spin the Wisconsin, in service they start the cart moving as the engine starts and do it over and over all day long. The twin shouldn't be that much harder to crank than a single, about the same size piston with a full revolution between compression.
I can get a 14 inch pulley on the crank, at the governed 2800 rpm engine speed would put the generator at 10,000. If yours has a 6:1 ratio it would be much faster.
Im planning on belt driving the saw bar, figure it would be much more efficient than using hydraulics, but need to power an electric clutch to engage the drive, hence need a charging system to keep up with that draw.
Thanks for the input guys.
 
F350ca,

please do post a pic of your project, I have a similar engine, with no starter, and I for one would like to see what you come up with.

Bob
 
Will post a picture once I get the mounts built. May be a while, just started a set of kitchen cabinets but will probably steal some time for this.
Did a rebuild on it last spring, bored .030 over, new valve guides and reground the valve seats, the valves were good as were all the bearings.
IMG_0528.jpg

IMG_0526.jpg

Boring the cylinders on the lathe, the quill on my mill won't stroke far enough and cranking the knee up and down didn't appeal to me.
Couldn't measure the taper after I was finished.

IMG_0515.jpg

Greg

IMG_0528.jpg IMG_0526.jpg IMG_0515.jpg
 
Judging from the pics that engine was crank start. So I presume there is no ring gear on the flywheel? Most of these built in "recent" times have a flywheel alternator and a Bendix drive starter. But I have seen them with a solenoid-shift starter. So you would need to scrounge up various bits from a junker.

As I recall, 6 to 1 is a typical drive ratio for the Delco starter-generators. Strikes me that them make sense on a golf cart because quietness is a big issue in golf and the clashing of starter pinion/ring gear would be avoided.

The electrical out put is fairly limited--maybe around ten amps. These things whiz around and it's not too hard to get one hot enough and fast enough to throw the solder out of the commutator connections.

Nice boring setup. How hard was it to get the bores centered?

Good luck. I hope you will share the results of your starter-generator setup.

Now that I'm thinking about this--International used a starter/generator on the low-boy version of the Cub, which has a small 4-cylinder engine of about 10-15 hp. The earlier offset, high-clearance version uses a conventional starter and generator. As far as I know the starter/generator works OK in this application.
 
It came off a NewHolland bailer, actually had a hand wheel on the drive end that you spun to start it. Where it was positioned you couldn't reach the crank.
Will try a 3 1/2 to 1 ratio, 14 inch pulley is all I can get on the shaft, the starter already has a 4 inch pulley with a fan.
The boring job worked out quite well, I have a 3 jaw bearinged chuck for the tailstock, I could hold it in place with it while I clamped it down, that got me real close, then just tap it around to find the centre of the holes.
Photo's will follow.

Greg
 
Dropped into the golf course maintenance shop where I got the unit. Apparently they're rated for 8,000rpm continuous and 12,000 burst for 3 minutes. Good thing I dropped in the 14 inch pulley might have done it in, will go with a 12 inch and spin it at 8,400, close enough to specs.
Greg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top