410 with 292 Governor

I have a question about the belt driven governor that comes with the 292 used on an old 410 combine. I built my own bandsaw mill and recently swapped out the lawnmower motor for a 1.9 liter Saturn Engine for more power. I need the power because my sawmill can cut logs up to 54" wide and the 25hp engine wasn't cutting it. Obviously, it is difficult to keep the RPM steady in a cut. I experimented with a cruise control but it didn't work so I set out to find a governor option.

New belt driven governors are expensive so I looked around and found a salvage yard that sold me one out of an old 410 combine. I am assuming it had a chevy inline 6. I have never seen how these things are supposed to work. There is only one arm instead of two. There is also very little info out there about them. I heard that these single arm governors are not meant to be variable speed, which is okay with me and that they only kick in at higher RPM and only act as a throttle limiter.

Here is what I have done so far, and it kind of works but it needs more adjustment. BTW the governor has a 5" pulley and the drive pulley is 5.5". Does this need to be different? The belt is a little loose which I heard was a good idea, not sure why though. I have the single governor arm linkage hooked up to the car throttle body where the centrifugal force is keeping the engine at a steady 2500rpm while running.

There is no throttle cable hooked up the the car's throttle body. Instead I have the "throttle cable" hooked up to where it pulls the governor arm past its high RPM setting, agains the spring, forcing the throttle body closed. It is fighting against the spring on the governor and the centrifugal force has no effect at an idle this way.. After the engine is started I "release" the throttle cable and let the governor do all the work.

After some adjustments and tightening the spring it works okay. I need to spend more time on it. If I enter the cut of a log at 2700 rpm it will drop down to about 2300 but will do a pretty okay job of staying there. It is definitely usable but not perfect.

I feel like I am missing something and won't feel right until I find out how it is supposed to work. I also do not want to damage the governor. As of now the spring is really tensioned up and it is difficult to keep the throttle cabe at an "idle". I wonder if I move the linkage from the very top of the arm to more towards the middle I can release some of the spring tension and still have the governor be responsive enough?

I would appreciate it if any of you could give me some insight into how it should be hooked up or what you would do to make it work it's best. Thank you.

I did a similar project years ago with an Olds 455 V-8 in a Cockshutt 570. First the belt needs to be snug, NOT loose. As an old MF mechanic I recall the 300/410/510 combines ALL had fixed spring tension governor, and throttle plate had linkage to manually pull it to idle position. Also will need a carb designed for governor use, an auto carb won't work right. Tractor carbs have offset throttle plates that WILL open on their on IF the control rod comes off, governor pulls it closed until spring tension allows it to open. The belt driven setup I had on the Olds would not work with the auto type carb as the plates were not offset. When I switched to a Stromberg GMC 401 V-6 carb from a New Idea Uni THEN I got it to work. Governor to carb rod length is critical too, too long OR short will make action either too sluggish or surge badly. You can make it variable speed, but you will have to make linkage to change the spring tension as needed and do away with the fixed tension design it has now..

(quoted from post at 04:43:55 05/21/20) I did a similar project years ago with an Olds 455 V-8 in a Cockshutt 570. First the belt needs to be snug, NOT loose. As an old MF mechanic I recall the 300/410/510 combines ALL had fixed spring tension governor, and throttle plate had linkage to manually pull it to idle position. Also will need a carb designed for governor use, an auto carb won't work right. Tractor carbs have offset throttle plates that WILL open on their on IF the control rod comes off, governor pulls it closed until spring tension allows it to open. The belt driven setup I had on the Olds would not work with the auto type carb as the plates were not offset. When I switched to a Stromberg GMC 401 V-6 carb from a New Idea Uni THEN I got it to work. Governor to carb rod length is critical too, too long OR short will make action either too sluggish or surge badly. You can make it variable speed, but you will have to make linkage to change the spring tension as needed and do away with the fixed tension design it has now..

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Thank you for the info. The engine is actually fuel injected so I am guessing I should be thankful that it is working at all. I am actually not familiar with the differences between an automobile and tractor carburetor. If I set up the linkage so that the top of the governor arm closes the throttle as centrifugal force increases would that work? So then the stationary spring tension and the governor are keeping the throttle at 2500rpm.

This link may possibly help, it is for a Foley brand governor. On our farm we had a Hesston swather with a Chrysler 170 CID slant six indusrial engine. It had a belt drive governor. So I found this by searching for "Chrysler industrial belt drive governor". The one on the swather had a variable throttle so it had two levers. The spring tension of the throttle plate may likely be affecting the govenor's ability to funtion properly.
Belt drive governor tips