Anybody have experience with old Gensets?

[JSinMO]

Before declaring victory, you might want to run them under a heavy load close to their rating. The drop light is inspiring, but a heavy load is where it's at.

After that, sell 'em off, and buy the right motor for your tiller. (you could wait for a storm, and sell at a premium, but done is good more often than not)

I completely agree with both your points. The light was an easy “proof of life”. As time and opportunity presents itself I’ll will be putting them under a load to make sure they will handle it.

The second part of your post is a bit more complicated. My father grew up in the depression era/WW2 on a farm. I’m sure a lot of us had someone from that time frame in our lives. I, for better or worse, inherited the “dont get rid of anything, you might need it” way of thinking.

It’s the old, one is none, two is one, and three is better philosophy. I should sell them to get other things I need, but the truth is they will probably stay here until we decide to sell out and move on, or I kick the bucket and the auctioneer sells them for me!

[RoamingGnome]

The second part of your post is a bit more complicated. My father grew up in the depression era/WW2 on a farm. I’m sure a lot of us had someone from that time frame in our lives. I, for better or worse, inherited the “dont get rid of anything, you might need it” way of thinking.

I understand completely, - My Dad was born in '34 and had exactly the same "don't get rid of anything" philosophy - I also inherited that gene and the desire to try fixing things instead of throwing them out and buying new... trying to downsize and "declutter" for the move from the city to the country has been especially challenging, you never know which treasures might be useful in the future

[Toolslinger]

Oh, I get it... Dad was born in '33. He passed in '22. It took many months to clean out/up to the point I could even have the auction in PA, and estate sale in NJ. I'm still working on it now since I couldn't part with too much of it at the time.
Plus, moving out to PA showed me just how much stuff I had myself.

I'm doing my level best to break that habit. (as I type away with 3 generators on hand, but in fairness, it's kinda 1 for each main building) If I can get myself down to 1 of any given thing in any given location, I'll call it a win. (which really means I need to sell one of the 646's, but that's another issues all together)