OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums Repairs and Maintenance Questions on Engines Questions on Other Engines TMG5000LBI GENERATOR

Hi all, don't hold much hope on this one, but here goes. A mate got caught with this heap of garbage, and it has never been any good since new. Still has minimal hours on it. Ok, it is a 270cc engine, which looks like it is probably a cheap Honda copy, as per usual with these Chinese things. First of all it done the digital display module, couldn't get a replacement, so forget that one. It cam to me because it wouldn't start. On checking, it had no spark, so we managed to locate a replacement CDI module and coil unit. Those items saw the spark return, but it isn't what I would call a strong spark, a bit on the weak side. Then we noticed the compression was nil, so on checking the valve clearance, found it was too small. On correction, that bought the compression back, but it is only doing around 55lb, I thought maybe a bit on the low side. Anyway, even after a squirt of aerostart into the air intake, or even directly into the plug hole, it will not fire. Very occasionally, it will give a cough or two, but that's it. So basically it has fuel, spark and compression, but wont start up. Unless I am missing something strange, it has me beat. The Australian importer is hopeless, knows very little about the thing, has no service manuals, very few parts, and tells me that none of the model is built the same way, some parts are different within the identical model number. Fantastic for a repairer. Obviously bought in a bunch of them from China, on the cheap, with no after sales service intended. Parts are most likely taken from a scrapped unit, that's the usual parts inventory for this type of junk. Not to mention the inverter wiring for the generator section, it looks like a nest of rodents have wired it up, plugs glued in their sockets, no grouping of wires, just looks like spaghetti in there. If anyone has had the misfortune to have worked on one, any ideas would be great. I just want to get the thing to start, then it's out of my hair. I told my mate never to touch a generator unless it has a ''name brand'' on it. Too much junk around.

Silly question, tried another plug?

Yes, a couple of new ones.

I have had the displeasure of working on one of these. Would not run - new plug, disconnect kill switch, etc. Had good spark, but couldn't get it. I only spent 1 hr on it as my mate had bought it, run it 3 heat cycles at no then low load, flushed oil.

Took it camping and wouldn't start. Never started again, was replaced under warranty. That failed as well, demanded money back (might have been edisons or something like that) and went and bought a used Honda.

Baffled me for a while

More interesting to you will be my other mates experience. Ran fine, took it bush, they heard it sound weird 'farting' noise and it died altogether. Tried everything, no go.

Next day, they tore it down (they do motorcross so know their way around an engine) as they figured it had to be valve timing - and they were dead right.

Apparently it slipped a couple of teeth on the gears. So much that it didn't kick back.

My mate said the gears were made of some seriously 'chicken sh*t' grade metal with teeth that looked like they were cut by a 8th grade metal work student.

They got one more day out of it and it did it again.

Fixed it, and suddenly not making any power. Inverter spontaneously died

Last time he saw it it was sailing over the back fence (which is hard as they aren't that light)

My view on this is that (since they go straight to 3600 rpm) they don't bed in right on first start up. I have read that the hardness of cam lobes increases significantly after some effectively 'work hardening' over the first few heat cycles. Thats why people recommend zinc in run in oil.

Maybe the load on the soft teeth straight away gives enough wear clearance to slip

My main view is they are just made of bad metal

Thanks Tyler, that makes complete sense regarding the valve timing being out. I will have a quick test of that to confirm, but I certainly wont be pulling it down to that level if it is. It will only be so that I can report back to the owner with something ''concrete'' to go on. Actually, this thing needs to be roped to a block of the stuff and dropped to the bottom of the ocean, never to be sighted again. I have never seen a device put together such as it, I mean, to get to a common item such as the coil, requires a full tear down of the engine covers, starter, fuel tank etc, as the coil is hidden under the engine shroud. I have wasted several days on it, but it will be out of here with a bad report very shortly. The valve timing issue would also explain the lack of compression until I backed off the valve clearance, as obviously all was wrong there. My mate paid $2,500 for the thing from a shop, yet on the website of the importer, they are going for $1400. I wonder why!

My first mate paid $1250ish (was a year or 2 ago), second mate bought his slightly used for $950 (from a guy who decided to upgrade).

A 5-6000w inverter Yamaha costs about 6k, so you definitely pay for quality

I would personally buy an older dunlite and run a UPS between any sensitive electronics

Don't have enough use for one though - I just keep a little GMC 800w in the shed in case of power failure. Should power some of the essentials in a blackout

Just to confirm the valve timing issue, I rotated the engine by hand to get TDC, and both valves were open somewhat at the wrong time, meaning that the valve cam gears are out of timing for certain. Wasted money on the CDI module, but I guess you have to have spark before moving onto the next stage, or it is a waste of time. Will never touch one of these things again though.

Did you end up getting spark?

Yes, the CDI module was crook, changed the coil also just to cover that area.

I don't want to sound stupid but when checking the valve timing you were rotating the motor in the right direction?

Yes, went through all the strokes and noted the valve positions, and they didn't match up to what they should be. Very difficult unit to strip down, so it is due to exit out the door any day now. I for one wasn't going to risk wasting more money on parts for such a rubbish unit. When the importer knows very little about the product, that rings alarm bells to me. They did say that there were several production changes within the same model, which tells me that it was a ''lets try this part and see if things improve'' type of assembly line. Cheap Ebay gen sets are good things to avoid at all costs. No parts, no build quality, no service backup, you are on your own with them.

Yes I know what you mean and when messing with this stuff the hours can just flyaway. Very annoying to pay good money I consider $2500 good money on ebay junk and get burnt.

Hi, yes, it hurts, that amount of money. What makes it worse is that the agent failed to let on about the possibility of the cam gears being at fault, when he would have known full well that they had a history of being a problem. All he said was to check the push rods hadn't jumped out of position due to the clearance being too large from the factory. A joke.

It could very well be that he didn't know about the cam gears - I would wager they never pull them down to do failure checks. The returned ones are probably the ones you get parts off.

No one would ask for a cam gear because 90% of their customer base would not pull them apart, most fail inside warranty and are returned, and if fails out of warranty - any service centre will treat it like its got corona (which I suppose can be a new version of avoid like the plague)

How angry is your mate with them? If I had pi**ed $2500 up against a wall, I would be fuming

Hi there, mate purchased it from a shop who has gone out of business, not direct from the importer, so the importer is protected a bit from the washup. It was returned to the shop before they closed down as the display had failed, but they couldn't fix it, even lost the booklet that came with it, Probably sold enough of these bits of junk to drive them out of business.