Chinese air cooled diesel

[NoSpark]

I purchased a 3.8HP YX165FA air cooled diesel a month ago. Its cast iron and horizontally opposed, looks like a Changfa. Its a cute little engine indeed and I bought it mostly "just because" and also because they're getting harder to find every day, in the US anyway. When I received it, I pulled out the oil dip stick and not to my surprise it had some awful smelling grease type substance on it and when I rubbed the grease between my fingers guess what I felt....yup, sand . After a couple of hours and about 5 cans of Brakeclean the inside was spottless. I found a couple of sand pockets in lower corners of the case. To add insult to injury, the injector pump was stuck hard and I had to completely disassemble it to get it unstuck. Pretty much no support from ebay seller who does not sell them regularly, oh well, buyer beware. It runs good now on my homemade biodiesel has lots of torque and hopefully will do a good job driving a small portable air compressor I plan on building. The manual is in chinese so if anyone knows where to download one that would be great.

I did not buy it from here because its out of stock, but this is what it looks like.

http://www.carrollstream.net/servlet/the-5/4.4HP-Air-Cooled-Diesel/Detail

[playdiesel]

I think I was watching that same engine and was about to bid but did not at the last moment.  Now wished I had because they have gone up to $335 now. Are they reasonably balanced? We have a Changfa R180 ( 7HP I think?) that is a real sweetheart and going to power a wood splitter when we get it finished. What I'd realy like to find is the water cooled version of your motor I think it is advertised like 4.5 HP? Sand seems to be the norm, also check for loose bolts. We found no sand in our Chinese engines but our 1115 Powermart 23HP had lose bolts on the balance shaft gears and governor. The Changfa was totaly defect free.

[NoSpark]

I wanted the water cooled engine too but I hemed and hawed till it was too late. Ive only got it mounted to a piece of channel right now so it vibrates and walks like any other motor mounted that way would. I'm not real impressed with the quality of the engine but the thing might just run forever. It took a minute to figure out how oil gets to the crank journal but its not unlike my old IHC hopper cooled engine where the oil climbs up the gears from the base(cam gear on this one, governor gear on the IHC) and gets pushed into a ring on the crank and centrifugally feeds the crank, there is a roller bearing between the gears and ring on this engine though. I also have an oil ring on my listeroid but its fed by the oil pump. Would love to have gotten a larger Changfa style but I got my fix-- for now.

[playdiesel]

My mechanic friend says if you want to learn how to appriciate Chinese quality you need to work on something made in India, LOL. I am a Johny come lately to the diesel engine bug but got it just in time it seems. First of the year they were still quite a few new Chinese engines for decent money on Ebay but in April I got the very last water cooled Engine that Carroll Stream had for sale, a 1115 hopper cooled. Some around for sale for high prices, same with Listeroids but good things come to those who search, and wait.  We picked up our radiator version R180 for a song, it is sitting on a board for now and is pretty well balanced given what it is.