I hate to ask this but Licoln vs Miller in the older gas driven welders

I hate to open this can of worms but in the last week I came across 2 gas driven welders and now own both. I have a Bobcat 225G that needs motor work, I can do the work and it looks the parts won't be to bad. I then found a Lincoln WP250 (like a ranger 9) It runs good for the most part looks like the intake valve on one cylinder is leaking a bit, again I can fix that. Both have the CC and CV modes and one is 8000 watt the other 9000 watt. Condition looks close on each. I would use it for both stick and mig work, most likely more mig than stick. Any views?? they both have the onan engine

16 HP on the bocat, 18 HP on the lincoln. If one had the kohler it would be easy to pick but both use the onan with parts prices far in the sky.

I would compare the CV portions of these machines, since you feel that this will be used more often.

I would check the number of CV taps. The best machine will have more taps and lots of overlap. Machines of this type often adjust both the 115VAC and the weld output when the fine output control is maipulated. That's important when using a spool gun, or any other wire feeder, of the type that works off of 115VAC. The spool gun may not have enough power to operate properly if the fine control is set too low, so you will need to be able to set your weld voltage while keeping the fine control near the maximum setting. (This would not be a problem if you are planning to use a feeder or spool gun that works off of arc volts only, such as a Readywelder, or a Lincoln LN-25. )

If you can check the wiring diagrams, look for capacitors across the output that are switched in when the machine is in CV mode. The capacitors are expensive, and are normally only in machines that are designed with CV operation in mind. A machine that was primarily designed for stick, but has one or two CV taps as afterthought, will most likely not have these capacitors.

I hope this helps,

Bob