Old Generator gift

[TheBishop]

A friend going into a nursing home gave me an old Military generator.


I've been looking over the internet for a week trying to locate another generator that looks like this one. It's single cylinder gas Kohler brand, and the large KOHLER is the only lettering still visible on the unit.


The other day when I brought it home I had trouble figuring the old unit out. So I went and picked up Mario and brought him to my home, and in 30 seconds he had the generator running. I had pulled and cleaned the fuel take a fuel line, new spark plug and charged the battery as soon as I got the unit home.


It had not run in two years but it fired and ran smoothly. There are no gauges although there are locations to add gauges.
I've ordered a Kill-A-Watt meter to test the output too be able to test the values. He told me this generator ran his whole house after any hurricane and he allowed two neighbors to plug 1 110V extension cord for their Fridges.

My question is does anyone know how old this unit could be?

 

[TheBishop]

I hope to find some paperwork on the unit to bring it back to life, it's been sitting most of it's life.

 

[NDT]

Welcome to the forum. You unit looks WWII to me. I have never seen one like it, but that does not mean much. Back then, any and every mfgr was making generators for the war effort with no standardization. Looks to be 4kW? You might ask over on the "Smokstack" forum, they are good with generator IDs as well.

 

[dmetalmiki]

What a fabulous old unit. What does the data plate say on the bottom right picture 3? (three fridges and other lights seems a whole load of required power). Well over 4 K.W.

 

[TheBishop]

The Decal in the lower right says, Kohler Controller.

Kohler on the back too. All the other ID locations had been rubbed off or scratched off.

I'm going to clean it up some and try to remove some of the aged grime, but I'm shocked that it runs at all, and runs smooth. Maybe some lettering will appear after some scrubbing. My fear is that I may rub some ID information off.

 

[Tow4]

If you can determine the engine HP, you will have an idea of the KW rating. Rule of thumb is 2HP per KW.

 

[quickfarms]

I looks like the engine could be a kohler k series

 

[TheBishop]

I cleaned a bit more and found 3.5RM 62, K331EP on the engine.

Looks old and is old but it runs like new.

How old is it. Does the K331EP on the Kohler engine date it at all?

 

[quickfarms]

It's a 12hp engine dating from the early 60's according to what I have found

 

[TheBishop]

Could the 62 on the 3.5RM 62, be the year it was made, if Kohler did it that way?