Honda Clone (GX390) Engine Rebuild - Low Hour Engine Dropped a Valve

I had a Dodge 318 V8 that overheated and burned a piston. Money was tight at the time, so I went to a "pull your own" junkyard, got a rod & piston, used the original bearings and rings from my engine, put it all together with new gaskets, got another 30,000 miles out of it. Desperation and ingenuity sometimes work well as a team.

Hi I'm a D I Y person and right now I am building a gx 390 clone based on your teachings, I learned alot about generators and small engines. Great video keep up the good work

Hands of a surgeon with a calm and cool demeanor.

Great video. Probably one of my favorites just because you took parts you had to fix it. Almost everyone who came across a motor with that kind of damage would have scrapped it . Saving a new motor for $34, priceless. No doubt it will pull its weight and drive a generator. Breathing life into one that was also headed for the scrap yard. When I was real young my uncle went to school for small engine repair. While he was there my grandfather went to a auction at a local business that had just gone out of business. He got a truck load of new and new/old stock still in original packages. (Briggs and tecumseh parts). There was also boxes of old parts from motors taken apart and saved for the same purpose you just showed. I was bored one rainy day and dug thru the many boxes of old parts and actually found enough to assemble a complete motor. It was about a 4 horse maybe or smaller. Flat head briggs. I actually assembled it with no gaskets. It ran like a new motor. I was about 11 years old. Didn't know gaskets was needed. Lol. My uncle came home on weekends. I showed him what I did. We dug thru the parts and found gaskets. That motor ran great. I actually put it on a mini bike frame we got from another suction. It ran great for a long time til my younger brother blew it up pulling on the governor arm to make it go faster. Lol. This video reminded me of that. I don't know how I got it to work. I basically knew nothing about small engines. No skill used. Pure luck.

This was the worst damage I've seen in your videos. If you didn't have the spare parts, that machine would've been for parts only. Now it lives to fight another day. Good job.

Hi James I’m not sure if you will see this post but I recently discovered your Youtube channel and as I was on vacation this week (and dealing with a nasty cold) I binged on your videos and was inspired to take another crack at fixing my deceased father in laws old 1988 John Deere SX75 riding mower (sentimental to my wife). Following your diagnostic thinking( spark, fuel, timing etc.) I got it running again and will give it another life mowing the lawn at our camp. Please keep producing (only if you’re enjoying doing so) these videos as your thought process and attention to detail is inspiring… Michael O.

Best to insert a snug fitting drill bit inside the dowels so when you grip the dowel it does not deform👍

Brilliant your ability to know what parts fit other engines is priceless. Congrats 😊😊😊

Bugs me that you did such a great job fixing and cleaning the motor, only to put that rusty flywheel on without so much as wiping off the rust.... 😄 Once again, thanx for a great and informative video.

Nice work Jim! Good to see that the Hemi can be swapped-out for a standard head with minimal changes.

Nice,no internal plastic parts. I like watching YouTube videos where people are repairing internal combustion engines. I’ve a Generac 6,500 continuous watts,industrial commercial generator. I purchased it in 1995. It has performed perfectly. The only thing I don’t like about this generator. The exhaust muffler is quite small and extremely loud. My Generac brushless continuous 6,500 watt 7,800 watt short term usage generator has a 13 horsepower Honda Clone internal combustion engine. I instantly converted the generator over to propane. Never having to worry about the gasoline going bad. I purchased a a 500 gallon propane tank. I installed it myself. I also built a shed and a permanent spot for the generator. I ran 0 stranded copper wire from an electric panel in my shed to my main panel in my home’s garage. My brother in law was an electrician and gave me the wire,sub panel and breakers. I didn’t use a disconnect switch. My wife and children knew to turn off the main breaker and turn on the 30 amp breaker for the generator. I also put an electric starter on the generator. The Honda Clone already had a flywheel with the gear teeth on it. Many manufacturers of generators that has the option to put an electric starter on it. Don’t have the gear teeth on the flywheel. The Honda Clone has an oil pump and filter. When I was living in the mountains of Pennsylvania. My neighborhood power grid was not on a loop. During our regular winter snowstorms . We would many times lose power for up to 5 days. The Generac Generator did its job exceptionally well. It would run our Well Pump and oil fired home heater. That had a copper coil inside for hot water. I also had a ventless fireplace heater. I purchased another 500 gallon propane tank for that. I would use a battery from my Ford F-350 with a DC to AC converter for the televisions and computers. The Generac Generator also has a 12 volt DC port for charging vehicle batteries and charge the Truck Battery daily. My truck has 2 batteries and I would swap them out daily. Anyway I really like your videos. Over time I will most likely watch all of your videos. The only thing that sucked was I had an electric stove. We would use a Coleman camp stove and a propane grill for cooking. Many of my neighbors didn’t have generators and the ones that did. Didn’t drain the gasoline out and their generators would not run. Or they would have a bunch of cheap extension cords. Many would burn up. Our homes in my neighborhood were at least 100 yards apart. I would allow my one neighbor to plug in a high end 30 amp extension cord. So his baseboard heat wouldn’t freeze. He had the same problem. Gasoline over a year old, no stabilizer in the gasoline. (The carburetor from my Generac was identical to my neighbors generator carburetor. After it dawned on me that I had a brand new carburetor. I installed it on his generator. ) His generator of course would not start. He and his wife had 4 small children. He would help me without question any time I asked. I would always return the favor. I ended up converting his generator over to propane and installed a disconnect switch,sub panel and breakers in his shed. This is what you do for neighbors that are decent hardworking people. After 20 years of moving. We still keep in communication regularly. He was so thankful when I converted his generator over to propane. My brother in law gave me all the 0 stranded copper wire. Sub Panel,disconnect switch and breakers. Another neighbor on the other side was a complete a-hole. He also had baseboard heat. Didn’t drain the gasoline out of his generator. One snow storm we had lost power for 5 days. All his pipes froze and split. The neighbor I was glad to help. I had him purchase antifreeze and filled his baseboard heating system with it. Just in case,He never had to worry about his pipes freezing and splitting. I had him purchase. Ford diesel antifreeze that never goes bad. His baseboard heating system still has the same antifreeze in it. No corrosion at all.

Thrifty and clever James, well done it sounds great!

Fresh cup of tea, let’s settle in for a little JC Thursday! Oh wait, I should be working!

THANK YOU for the extra info about the HF cleaner... GREAT JOB on the engine! and the video editing!

Catching up on this video, Jim. On those dowel pins, I recently learned a little trick. Put the proper size drill bit shank into the dowel so it is supported, and then you can grab them as tight as you like with vice grips without crushing them. Then with a little twist even really stuck ones will come right out. Thanks for saying you can adjust the valves in many different positions of the engine. I do that and constantly get comments that I'm wrong, it has to be at TDC, etc. Nice work on the rebuild! 👍🏻

Great precise and accurate rebuild. That's a good motor.

Great job Jim, really enjoyed the video!

Exellent work. Very quiet & very smooth.

Nice work!! I took a GN-190 and made a GN-220 head fit because I couldn’t get valves for an early GN-190. It worked out great. Thanks!

Exceeds Expectations? For that bit of magic, you get an Outstanding!