I would like your opinion.

[Attakapas24]

I have a Generac 9344-1. Genhead is dead. I am thinking about removing the the shaft from the old rotor and having it turned and keyed to 38mm. Coupling the shaft and flex plate with a 38mm Lovejoy coupling to a 8 KW ST Genhead. What do you think of this type connection? How critical is alignment and balance?

Any suggestions will be appreicated.

I have attached pictures of the rotor and flywheel.

[Brian Howard]

If yours is the 1800 RPM Kubota, it should make a fantastic gen set. I don't think you will get more than about 6.5kw. Keep the shaft as short as possible and the alignment as accurate as possible. This may be difficult if the flex plate has much give in it. Might consider a shaft without the Flexplate. Seems like a lot of people change the bearings on the ST units before use. Check with Utterpower ( www.utterpower.com/ ) for really good advice on them.
Good luck and send pictures

[Attakapas24]

Thanks for the good information.

How would replace the flex plate with a shaft? The flex plate is not that strong.

It is not a Kubota, but I think is on the same design.

[Brian Howard]

One way would be to have a disc of 1/4" or 3/8" steel to bolt to the flywheel where the flex plate currently attaches with the 38mm shaft welded to the center of it. This would require some accurate lathe work, but would give a more rigid coupling. Lovejoy has a very good catalogue on their web site that covers capacity and alignment in detail.

[Gunny]

First of all.............what's wrong with the existing generator end? Sometimes way easier and cheaper to fix it than to do anything else. A rewind shouldn't cost but less than $800 or so on a machine of this size.

Yes, a LoveJoy coupling will work, thats what they are designed for, to make up for misalignment issues.

[Attakapas24]

The shaft bolts up to the flex plate. What if I used the flex plate as a pattern and made a 1/4 mirror image and put both to the shaft?

[Brian Howard]

Yep. That would work. Any decent auto parts store should have a generic pressure switch. Murphy makes one.