Hey guys, I know I’m a little late jumping in here, but I recently picked up a MEP‑804A and ran into the same headache for months. Swapped relays around, even found one with a bad set of contacts, but that didn’t fix the issue.
I finally started thinking it might be vibration-related, so I pulled the Woodward controller, popped the cover off, and sure enough — found a few cold solder joints. Cleaned them up, resoldered, and dropped the board back in.
First start after that, it immediately went into overspeed and slammed the Hz meter at 60. Switched over to 50 Hz (shutdown first, never switch while the Gen is running) and it didn’t overspeed, but the frequency was way off on the high side. After some fiddling with adjustments, I was able to dial it in at 60 Hz, and so far it’s been running solid without dropping back to 50.
Fingers crossed it stays happy at 60 Hz!
Update: 9/1/25
SCE had maintenance work in our area and we were without power for 7 hours. I went out to the north 40 and fired up ole "GEN 76" and it ran flawlessly for the entire 7 hours, not a single fluctuation.
A little more information:
Woodward EG governor/actuator and control board:
1. Cold solder joints on the Woodward board
These units are old, and heat/vibration cycles often crack solder joints on the control board, particularly around the relay pins, power resistors, and the governor drive circuitry. Resoldering those can definitely bring a governor back to life.
2. Overspeed immediately after reinstall
This typically happens if the governor sense or reference got disturbed. After a resolder, there can be slightly different resistance/feedback values that throw the calibration way off. The controller then drives the actuator full open thinking it’s not getting signal, resulting in an overspeed. Making governor adjustments (gain, speed, stability pots), will basically re‑tune it to where it holds the correct frequency under load.
