VH4 Wisconsin question

Got a question for ya"ll. Went to look at an old Bobcat this evening that had a VH4D Wisconsin in it. The owner said he bought it running, and ran it for a few hours one day before it started smoking a little bit. Not exactly sure that meant, but he said when he started seeing the little bit of smoke he parked it.

When he went to run it again a week or so later it wouldn"t crank. He said before it started right up with only a partial application of the choke. He checked and had fire so decided that it must not be getting fuel so he replace the fuel transfer pump. It still wouldn"t run so he said he checked each wire and plug to insure the wires were plugged in, and the plugs were actually firing. Still, it wouldn"t run, so he gave up.

So, I get there today and see there is fuel pressure but the bowl is dry. Pulled the carb, got the needle unstuck, and put it back on. Tried to get it started again, but even though I could see there was fuel in the bowl now, and knew I had fire, it still wouldn"t run.

So, I started digging in deeper and when I looked at the book I discovered that the plugs weren"t wired right, and appeared to be 180 out. So, I wired them back per the service manual, and when I tried it again, it fired right up. The problem was that although it ran, it kept backfiring through the intake, and blowing flames through the exhaust. It seemed to be either severaly out of time, or possibly had a burnt valve given the flames going both directions. I tried changing the timing but the problem didn't get better regardless of which way I went, and too far either way simply shut it down. One off, I could reset the timing back to where it had been, and it would run again, but still do the flaming exhaust and backfiring through the intake.

Unfortunately even though I got it running, at least halfway, both head gaskets were leaking so it"s got to be taken down to at least repair that problem. This will let me check the valves when I get into it, so it"s all good there. Hopefully they just need to be adjusted, and aren't burnt, but no way to know til I get into it deeper next week.

All that said, have any of you ever seen a V4 series Wisconsin actually run when it"s timed/wired 180 degrees out of time? I never heard of or seen one run like that, but the owner swears he didn"t do anything with the plug wires but pull and replace them one at a time to insure both ends were plugged in properly, and to pull the plugs one at a time to check fire.

So, just curious, has anyone ever seen this happen, because it"s a new one on me?

hope ya get it fixed before ya get to the drive shaft.

Wayne, you ALREADY know the answer.

Engines do NOT run when they are "180º out of time".

But strange stuff happens/falls out of the owner"s mouth.

(They LIE, even when that makes the repair bill higher.)

That being said, I am NOT a Wisconsin GURU, but DO know that some of them are "odd fire" with the 4 distributor cam lobes being asymmetrical.

NOT sure if this has ANY bearing on the engine you dealt with.

Stuck// sticking valves very common problem on air cooled sconies! Timing issue that's a good one? Did it even run well enough to tell if it was attempting to fire on all cylinders? If you put it 180 out it might still be able to run on 2 cyls.

You and me both....LOL

I can't name any specifically, but I do know there are engines out there that can run when 180 out. Whether a Wisconsin is one of them, and the "fact" that this one seemed to have done so, is a new one on me.

As far as the owner, he said he grew up working on small engines, to the degree that most 'non-mechanics' do, so he had at least an idea of the things that might have been wrong. To that end he said he did the things I mentioned, and when none of them worked, he stopped and contacted me. In his defense, the way the wires had been routed it didn't look like anyone had done anything radical to change them recently.

That sounds like it may be possible, and the reason that it both "ran" and spit fire at the same time. I guess I will know a lot more for sure when he gets it brought to me next week.

We had VH4 and VE4 engines on our New Holland balers in the 1940s and 1950s. Don't know whether it has anything to do with your "180 degrees out" but the number one cylinder was nearest the flywheel, not the output end of the crankshaft. We had to ALWAYS give them a valve grind before the beginning of every hay season. Rusting valves were prevented by at end of each season remove a small plug from the inlet manifold and squirting in a copious amount of engine oil from a can till the engine smoked well and misfired then shut it down quickly. No more trouble.

I have still got one VH4D on a lift that runs pretty good. Bob is right. It is 180 degrees off and somebody switched the wires to compenate for that. Those engings(at least the ones I had) seemed to get sticky float valves if they sat around. Always tapped the carb until they ran a little while. I put an electric pump on the one I've got now. Seems to help it run better.
Also it seems it does not take too much run time to have to change spark plugs. I use Autolite plugs.
I would put the wires back were they were and fire it on starting fluid for a few seconds to see how it runs.
I also agree with Bob about believing what people say. Either their perception how things work is different than mine or they are flat out distorting the truth. But, I guess it was always that way.

Take a look at this video on the V4 Wisconsin. The firing order is this viewing from the flywheel end.
1-3
2-4
Note when No1 piston is at TDC on the compression stroke so is No4. Hal
Untitled URL Link

I have seen an odd fire with an even fire 1/2 speed dist. This fires 1 and 3 correctly but 2 and four 90 crankshaft degrees slow. It also makes a lot of heat in the slow firing 2 and 4 cylinder.
When you get it figured out I would like to know what was wrong.

The way it was, the guy said he had tried ether to get it running, hoping that the fuel pump would creat enough pressure that way to unstick the needle or whatever the problem was there. Thing is he said that even with the ether he couldn't get it to fire. Like I said, I pulled the plug on number 1 and put the engine as close to TDC on one as I could get it without raising the cab and looking for the timing marks, and then looked at where the rotor button was pointed. It matched up with what the book said about number one being in line with the notch in the cap. From there I reran the wires from the cap in their right places and she fired right up and put on her little flame show. As far as what the guy did, if you'd have seen where it was setting, it had to be running to get there, and he only ran it once since he bought it, so it had to be running pretty good for him to fork over the money to buy it. That said, you can usually get a good idea when someone is BSing you from their whole outlook on the repair, cost, etc, and I think this guy was pretty much on the level with me....or at least threw up no red flags given that what I was seeing matched up with what he said he had or hadn't done.

The last time I had the Wisconsin engine in my bobcat rebuilt it was shooting fire out of the muffler, ended up putting both valves and valve guides in ,the valve stems were really worn, I ended up totally rebuilding the engine.

You got me thinking Wayne, I think I am going try to hook one of those springs that attach to from the float to the needle valve.
Seems like that would solve the needle valve sticking too frequently.

"All that said, have any of you ever seen a V4 series Wisconsin actually run when it"s timed/wired 180 degrees out of time?" In my mind this statement explains it. Both the distributor or magneto and the wires are out 180, if only one was out 180 it would not run as it did when you changed the wires. This is a case of two wrongs make it right, its firing in time with the appropriate piston at TDC as it is supposed to regardless of the numbers on the cap or the position of the rotor.