Kohler Confident 5 won't start

[Old Rocker]

I will try to make a long story short, July 4 weekend, 105 degrees, using generator to power ac. Stopped to fuel the coach and shut down generator, restarted after fueling and it ran for approx 2 minutes then died. The way it died I would have sworn it vapor locked the fuel pump....but no.
It will hit a couple of times, blowing black smoke out the exhaust when it fires, kicking the starter out.

He is what I know I have.
A new filter, a good pump putting out about 2.5 lbs pressure, fuel in the carb, spark anytime the engine is turning, oil pressure, a working stepper motor and apparently a good circuit board, and compression of 85 lbs.

The engine will not start on a shot of ether or any other combustable shot down the carb. The spark plugs are dark and somewhat sooty but not wet.

Am I missing something? I have never had an engine that wouldnt at least try to run on ether, but it acts somewhat like it floods it. Oh and i drained the float bowl and tried cranking it dry also. And the anti dieseling valve specs out on ohms and seem to be functional.

This genset has only 80 hours on it for being a 96 model, so I have a hard time believing it is a serious engine issue.

Any thoughts?

[carahsue]

Ours did the same thing , it was the circuit board .
We had a rebuilt one put in , after we wore the starter brushes out .
Have a Kohler also , it's a 1997 , but the hour meter wasn't working
so we have no idea how many hours it actually has .
It has quit again and we are waiting for the mechanic to call us back .
Good luck with yours .
Let us know how it turns out please.
Thanks

[Old Rocker]

After many hours of cussing and discussing with a young friend, "Boy Genius" who can read schematics, we were able to make the genset run by shoving gas down the carb and holding the throttle open. So that eliminated major engine problems. So "Boy Genius" poored over the schematics and got his magical device call a DVOM and probed a few connectors and determined that the control boards were both fine and doing what they were supposed to do when they dont have a signal from the engine speed sensor. That is they shut the thing down.

So eighty bucks later it is fixed.

Hard part was pulling the genset and the shroud over the flywheel.

It appears from the manual that the Confident 4's and 5's have this sensor.

[carahsue]

Hi , and thanks for the information !
Could you tell us where the sensor is located ? We have looked in the manual and everywhere we could think of , but can't find one or any information on one .
We have replaced wires , that were not in good shape , and checked everything
that was visable , have not found anything except , now the light on the dash is working again , so I guess it fixed that
Thanks ,
carahsue

[Old Rocker]

The sensor is located on the flywheel side of the engine away from the switch/fuse panel. It is under the cooling shroud that covers the whole engine (it must be completely removed) down low and looks like a bolt of about 3/4 in head size with a jam nut on it to hold it tight into the flywheel housing. It has wires in insulation coming out of it. You must reinstall the new one with a feeler guage to set the air gap.

It is easy to test with a volt/ohm meter. The ends of the wires come out in the control panel and are the smallest ones coming into it. They can be unpluged and tested there without pulling the genset, just the cover for the control box. With the meter on ac current you should see it jumping a cranking speed and on the ohm side it should have continuity(sp?).