Your last generator Maintenance Run

[3930dave]

It's funny you said that you always would have a portable gen, just in case.
Well I've got an old Generac 5.5 kw portable also. I figure it's not worth a whole lot if I try to sell it, but it might come in real handy some day if the standby unit fails, or if one of my neighbors needs power.

Yeah... self-identified Belt and Suspenders guy here..... :thumbsup:

I have reasons to want portable power for applications away from home, but yes it's nice to have as a backup to an automatic system.

In a really long outage, like some here have described living through, you'd probably want to get an oil change done - nice to have a second smaller gen to spell off the main one for times like that, esp. with critical loads.

Rgds, D.

 

[murphy1244]

I noticed on my nat gas burning generator that the exhaust manifolds have a rusty growth on them. Anyone else?

 

[3930dave]

I noticed on my nat gas burning generator that the exhaust manifolds have a rusty growth on them. Anyone else?

1) You might have posted before Murph, but remind me again - What brand generator ?

2) Do you mean the manifolds themselves are corroding, or is this a deposit on them from the exhaust gas ?

Rgds, D.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

On the last few maintenance runs on the RV Kohler generator I noticed it too a lot of grinding to get it to fire off. Since I could smell gas I figured that was not the issue so we pulled the plugs. They did not look bad but the new ones were not the right ones based on my 'web' search and now we are in a deep freeze over night but are to see 50F by next week end we are going to let the generator set. I did check how the spark looked today and it was very weak but it is not a hot system because the plugs gap at .025. May have to look at a new coil/wiring kit that is only about $40. It is a 1992 5000 watt size twin cylinder. I expect the wiring is factory but just do not know its history.

New weekend we need to get our back up generators prepped. The cold across the country tonight got my attention.

 

[3930dave]

Good luck with the RV gen Gale. Mice seem to favour RV gens, so be on the lookout for nests, chewed wires.... depending on design, they sometimes even set up camp in the air filter.

Esp. if you don't know the running hours on it, it might be time for new wires. $40 for a kit doesn't seem unreasonable.

Rgds, D.

 

[murphy1244]

1) You might have posted before Murph, but remind me again - What brand generator ?

2) Do you mean the manifolds themselves are corroding, or is this a deposit on them from the exhaust gas ?

Rgds, D.

It is a Briggs and it almost looks like the manifolds are leaking has a calcium look to it.

 

[3930dave]

It is a Briggs and it almost looks like the manifolds are leaking has a calcium look to it.

Do you have an hour meter on it ?

If nobody bites here, might be worth starting a thread for it. Lacking a dedicated Briggs forum; Lawn and Garden might be appropriate. (Tho, gotta admit, there probably aren't too many Nat Gas lawn mowers around ).

Worth pursuing, as sometimes issues like this are unofficially covered under warranty - and you're most likely to hear about that coverage in forums like this.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out....

Rgds, D.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

I think our RV generator is at 672 hours. It was at around 400 when we bought it in 2007. I think a new set is in order if we can not get a good spark when we get a chance to look at it. I had some rats work over the wires on a new like home generator and Nissan pick up. Learned plastic trash cans did not keep them out of the dog food.

 

[Cat_Driver]

60 KW, I changed 5 gallons of oil, fuel filter, air filter, filled up 80 gallons of fuel, added fuel additives, flushed the radiator new coolant, new LED lights on trailer, new 7 pin connector to truck, (2) new batteries, washed and waxed the sound proof enclosure. Ran a LOAD to exercise it.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Got good spark. When we got home tonight we decided to see what kind of spark we could see from one of the new plugs with them both out and it was sparking within normal limits I am sure. This generation of two cylinder engines sparks on both compression and exhaust strokes often and I expect this one does as well. They do not have a distributor and just fire directly from the coil.

This weekend it is to warm up after being very cold Tue-Thur nights. We got dielectric grease for the spark plug cover and anti seize compound for the plug threads which is something I have never used before. The plugs came out fine and have the taper seal vs the washer seal like some plugs.

When we get it running again we will change the oil but it does not have many hours on it.

Cat_Driver is your generator trailer mounted? It sounds like a nice system.