hobart G-254

admin

Well I figured I would ask over here about this 1970's gas drive welder as the other forum did not have any opinion of this machine.I am thinking of purchaseing the unit if for nothing else but the motor but if the machine is a prefered unit (aka good machine) I will spend some time and $ on the gen itself.It currently has very little to no output and looks to have corrosion involved on the main reostat  as well as some of the other connections. Anyways hope to learn more on these old machines my last venture was a 225 amp ac/dc lincoln with a 16 hp briggs single.Seems to run great after some major engine work and have since aquired another one compleate as well as a parts only machine.Looks as if it fell off a truck at 60.Have had good luck with the lincolns just do not want to wast time on a poor machine and I really do not know anything about these old hobarts,millers at all.Thanks
Reply:I bought a old 82 model  Hobart.. from the gov , liquidators.. It was an Army machine.. I messed with it,,with the help of a fella on here.. goes by Franc.  He was real helpful.. Mine is a diesel eng,, 100% duty cycle..   It was allot of fun playing with ,, and it is an awesome welding machine..   If Franc is up to helping ya out,, he is very knowledgable..
Reply:Well I think the engine on this unit is far superior to the 16hp single briggs the lincolns I own have,as thay are very noisy units even with larger  mufflers.This unit has the vf4 wisconson on it or so the hobart guys say.I am not really up on these as the first gas drive was a lincoln given to me basicly in a box my uncle had given up on and bought a ranger 9 to run his welding busness fron his truck with.Anyways I hope a few of the old timers well ok more experianced members will help with the gen side as I can usuially figure out a engine fairly easily but electricty I am not so good with.My motto is (it's all good untill the smoke gets out). Thanks
Reply:if the rheostat contacts are filthy then they can easily  inhibit the functioning of the generator side of the unit. often this generator side can be a DC or an AC generator that has an exciter coil, controlled by the rheostat. when the stat goes poop, the main coil never gets to see sufficient magnetism because the exciter coil  is defeated by the bad stat. no exciter magnetism equals no main output current - it cant convert the spin energy into electricity without the exciter magnetism. I would say that the first thing you should do is see if you can find a book on it, check out the interior wiring and make sure that is all OK, clean up the contact brushes and mating areas on the spinning armature, brush holders, etc, and the rheostats, then try i t again. with any luck, its just tired of working under pigsty conditions but would work OK if cleaned up. many old generators just go slowly dead because of poor service upkeep and increasingly debilitating dirt on necessary connections. permanent magnet generators eventually droop out also but can have the magnets recharged ( yes, that is the right word) and then will work much better.you might need to put new brushes and springs in it if the brushes are totally shot, probably  refinish the armature rings/commutator areas if the springs actually ran against them, and then it should work like it was new.I just saw a link to a salvage seller that thinks a hobart 254 is a DC generator with positive and negative leads. if that is true then it is a DC machine probably a lot like the old DC generators used in cars . it should work great when you get it cleaned up. tell us how it goes.Last edited by lucywalker; 11-18-2004 at 08:01 PM.