My little generator

At lowes last spring I found a broke down 7kw troybilt generator with electric start 10hp Briggs and Stratton in the lowes power equipment junk pile for $100. One just like it on the shelf costs $900 new.
A local construction company returned it after it quit producing power. I saw them running 2 electric jack hammers off it the other day (small town here).
I brought it home also found it had a dead battery and is only 3 years old (found the date of manufacture on the build sticker).
Once I got it fired up it showed signs of no excitation, a 7 volt AC reading line to line. That narrowed it down to 3 possible things with one multimeter reading, voltage reg, brushes and armature. The easiest thing to check out of those 3 is continuity through the brushes/slip ring and armature, I had no continuity. That narrowed it down to brushes or armature.
I pulled the brushes and they were clearly just worn out. I am encouraged by this, it took a real construction company 3 years of beating it like a rented mule almost daily to make 2 consumable parts fail (the battery and the slip ring brushes).

So I ordered 2 set of brushes, put in a set and it ran up 240vac line to line.
This brush failure occurred in part to all the dirt that blows around. At some point I will build a filtered forced air rig to give the generator extra air that is also very clean. It will likely be made out of a bathroom fan and air conditioner air filter.
Because when its hot, its also dry, when its hot and dry the wind likes to blow, that picks up dirt and most of that dirt stays suspended right about the level of where the generators cooling air intake is.

Then after I fixed it I decided I didnt like the power distribution panel and tore it all apart.
Found everything including the 30 amp circuit connected up with 12ga wire. From the staror windings to the generator terminal board its 10ga, then from the terminal board to everything else is 12ga. That was torn out, replaced with some "10ga" wire that measures more like 9ga, then I installed real squareD QO breakers, I am keeping the L14-30r and L14-20r, I also added a 10-50r since that is what all my 220 powered stuff uses. The L14-20r and all but one 5-20r will be on 20 amp breakers. The L14-30r, 10-50r and a heavy duty 5-20r will be on 30 amp circuits.

The lawnmower sized battery was dead and in an utterly stupid position, up under the fuel tanks and I could tell it has vibrated loose at least once. I was not about to put another battery up under the fuel tank in that impossible position. So I built a battery holder and welded it onto the cart.

I built a cart for it, added fuel tanks, put a huge car battery on it, added an inverter, a good inverter, added a 100 amp breaker between the battery and everything else. Then connected everything with 4ga THHN wire. I pop the breaker when its in storage.
I have totally finished the fuel tank install, added J-hooks to hang all the cords and even added another 5 gallon gas tank (added a fixed 5 gallon tank and made a place to cargo strap a standard 5 gallon red gas can). Need to take a picture of its current state which I call "full battle rattle". All the exposed wiring is in conduit now, the generator has a cover now C/O my local scrap yard (in the pictures it was removed because I didn't have it) I am glad I decided bolt the generator set on a heavier cart because now it carries an extra nearly 200 or so pounds of fuel, electrical cords, bigger battery and power inverter.

I use this to power welders, grinders, saws, air compressors, lights. For me its not meant to replace the power grid except for when it cuts out.