Belco Generator Fix for No Compression

I picked up this generator almost five years ago and got it running back then with only some minor repairs like carb and fuel tank cleaning, magneto points cleaning, and unsticking the exhaust valve. As is with a lot of things I buy and get working, this generator sat for the next four years without being run. I've decided to sell it so I dragged it out of the dark corner it has been sitting in, tried to start it, but it wasn't cooperating as there was no compression. A sad state of affairs.

I pulled the valve cover side plate off the engine and sure enough, the exhaust valve was stuck open. As can be seen in this photo below, things got a little more involved than I'd hoped.

I worked for an hour trying to unstick the valve. Push it up, pry it down, push it up, pry it down. Over and over again. But it just wasn't having it, so off came the head. I figured it wouldn't take long to fix it now since I had access to the top and bottom of the valve but after more fiddling with it I noticed the valve's face was hitting one side of the seat before the other, so the face had gotten eroded away to the point I had to do something more drastic.

Time for some valve grinding. The first step was to get the valve stem keepers off the valve stem. That is always a joy when I don't have a valve spring compressor. I did manage to get the keepers removed (the above photo shows a bolt and washers holding the valve down during that process) and I finally got the valve out of the engine. I then chucked the valve in the lathe and trued up the valve face. It didn't take much.

The next step was to true up the real culprit, the valve seat in the engine. I had bought a cheap (did I say cheap?) import grinding stone set and went to town. Even though the grinding set was of horrible quality, it still managed to make a serviceable valve seat. I then lapped the valve to the seat, shown below. You can see a nice uniform lapped ring on the valve's face.

After grinding the valve and seat, the next step is always to check valve clearance. The internet indicated clearance needs to be 0.016" for the exhaust. The measured gap was about 0.010" so I had to remove about 0.006" from the end of the valve stem. I did this on the lathe also.

The next step was to reinstall the valve spring, spring retainer, and keepers. After trying for half an hour with two screwdrivers to compress the spring and install the keepers, I decided to use zip ties to hold the spring compressed. It was still difficult but sure worked much better than my previous attempt.

I got one valve keeper onto the valve stem and then looked for the second keeper that had been laying on the base of the generator. It was nowhere to be found. I searched all around. I had put a dab of grease on it so it would stick to the valve stem once installed, so I wondered if it got stuck to my coat. If that were the case, it could be just about anywhere. I finally found it though, and you can see it in the next photo....... Yes, it's there, just to the left of the generator. In amongst the gravel, moss and fir needles.

Ok, so maybe it doesn't show up so well. Here's a better shot (center of photo). It did get stuck to my coat but fortunately it didn't go too awfully far.

Once things were back together, the engine started  up easily and ran great. These old Wisconsin engines seem to run forever (I think this one is a model AK).