Harbor Freight 61169 is the discontinued 2500W/2200W inverter
generator. If anyone here has one, could you tell me if the hole in
the left side of the carburetor above the G in RUIXING is open or
plugged?

Mine surged badly at idle when run at the most recent 3 month
interval. The cure was removing the idle stop screw and prying up the
black idle or pilot jet the screw head holds in, and blowing out the
jet and the idle passage that exits beyond the throttle plate.

The main jet and emulsion tube also remove easily out the bottom. It's
a pretty simple carb to disassemble and clean. I used a numbered drill
shank to measure the idle stop screw setting.

The first time I blew air into the end of the passage on the left side
of throat inlet some carb cleaner unexpectedly came out the side,
through the type of hole that's normally plugged with a brass ball.
But its ID doesn't look like anything was ever pressed into it.

The engine now idles as smoothly with the hole open or my finger over
it, as the idle passage is also fed through the air cleaner, but it's
a possible entry for dirt or small insects which might have been the
original problem. The carb bowl was clean.

Afterwards I tested the genny at full load with two coffee pots and a
hotplate (pure resistance) plugged into a 20A Variac. The output held
121V right up to 19A, then dipped as the OUTPUT light turned off and
OVERLOAD came on. Switching the load on and off at 18A didn't change
the KAW output voltage reading at the other outlet. I think the
current reached 22A briefly, on the analog Variac meter.

-jsw