Your last generator Maintenance Run
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90cummins
Veteran Member
I知 currently in the process of repairing a 10hp Yanmar diesel clone in a generator that has 220 hours on the meter.
It was purchased for home backup and was being used on a job for 3 weeks running skil saws, sawzalls, a compressor and battery chargers.
It had run fine for weeks approx. 8 to 10 hrs. a day when it started skipping, blue smoke and various noises.
When I received it I tried to start it but it appeared to be low on compression and would not fire.
I pulled the oil filter screen and it was full of junk & sludge.
The owner said he wasn't aware of the filter because the manual got ruined in his cellar due to moisture where the generator is stored.
Further inspection and details of how the owner operated it indicates it may have been wet stacked from running in the winter with not enough load to warm it up.
I removed the engine & disassemble it and found 3 patches of rust on the cylinder wall but no scoring.
The exhaust port was wet from running with little load.
I removed the piston & rings which look good with no obvious defects along with all other components.
There were some deposits in the bottom of the crankcase but nothing serious.
I remove the valves from the head and saw some pitting on the exhaust seat so I cut new valve seats with my Neway seat cutter. I resurfaced the head on my granite surface plate using 220 wet/dry carbide paper.
Cylinder was honed which removed the patches of rust but pits in the cylinder wall remain which should be ok.
New parts installed are;
Piston rings, pto main bearing, rod bearing oil filter screen and various gasket & seals.
The block is built and the head is on and I'm trying to torque the flywheel nut to 150lbft of torque, I don't have the moxie anymore and I need to find some young muscle to help.
Further discussions with the owner indicate that he has no idea how much load he can put on it.
During an outage in the winter he basically runs the circulators for his hot water boiler (heat) and some lights which may total 1kw at best.
Will update as progress is made.
90cummins
It was purchased for home backup and was being used on a job for 3 weeks running skil saws, sawzalls, a compressor and battery chargers.
It had run fine for weeks approx. 8 to 10 hrs. a day when it started skipping, blue smoke and various noises.
When I received it I tried to start it but it appeared to be low on compression and would not fire.
I pulled the oil filter screen and it was full of junk & sludge.
The owner said he wasn't aware of the filter because the manual got ruined in his cellar due to moisture where the generator is stored.
Further inspection and details of how the owner operated it indicates it may have been wet stacked from running in the winter with not enough load to warm it up.
I removed the engine & disassemble it and found 3 patches of rust on the cylinder wall but no scoring.
The exhaust port was wet from running with little load.
I removed the piston & rings which look good with no obvious defects along with all other components.
There were some deposits in the bottom of the crankcase but nothing serious.
I remove the valves from the head and saw some pitting on the exhaust seat so I cut new valve seats with my Neway seat cutter. I resurfaced the head on my granite surface plate using 220 wet/dry carbide paper.
Cylinder was honed which removed the patches of rust but pits in the cylinder wall remain which should be ok.
New parts installed are;
Piston rings, pto main bearing, rod bearing oil filter screen and various gasket & seals.
The block is built and the head is on and I'm trying to torque the flywheel nut to 150lbft of torque, I don't have the moxie anymore and I need to find some young muscle to help.
Further discussions with the owner indicate that he has no idea how much load he can put on it.
During an outage in the winter he basically runs the circulators for his hot water boiler (heat) and some lights which may total 1kw at best.
Will update as progress is made.
90cummins
Lady Luck smiles on you.... give her a wink and a nod for that Toro..... residual lube may have taken care of that short duration run.
Fogging oil is still around, but it seems mostly the boat and some classic-car guys that use it. Can't say that I use it on my stuff, but that is more laziness on my part rather than thinking it does nothing.....
I'd probably use fogging oil if I planned to store something long term, say longer than 8 months....
Rgds, D.
Your shop needs some more resources.... or do you have a casting foundry out back too ?
:laughing:Thorough rebuild - thanks for the details. IMO, diesels suffer the worst from under-loading - good example of the consequences.
From your description of the sludge and rust, it sounds like the oil was neglected too.
Post-rebuild, I hope your buddy has learned a lesson, and adds a couple of space heaters as load.
Pls let us know how fire-up and run-in/testing goes.
Rgds, D.
90cummins
Veteran Member
PCB's are chemicals that were used in high voltage transformer oils.
They were dumped & buried in and around Pittsfield Ma.
During remediation of the contaminated soil air samples were taken 24/7 to monitor air quality.
In some neighbor hoods they went 10ft or more to remove soil.
There are also permanent pumps pulling a vacuum to extract oil that has moved to deep to access.
90cummins
They were dumped & buried in and around Pittsfield Ma.
During remediation of the contaminated soil air samples were taken 24/7 to monitor air quality.
In some neighbor hoods they went 10ft or more to remove soil.
There are also permanent pumps pulling a vacuum to extract oil that has moved to deep to access.
90cummins
90cummins
Veteran Member
Your shop needs some more resources.... or do you have a casting foundry out back too ?
Thorough rebuild - thanks for the details. IMO, diesels suffer the worst from under-loading - good example of the consequences.
From your description of the sludge and rust, it sounds like the oil was neglected too.
Post-rebuild, I hope your buddy has learned a lesson, and adds a couple of space heaters as load.
Pls let us know how fire-up and run-in/testing goes.
Rgds, D.
You are correct insufficient load causes a lot of problems, particularly with diesels. That's why you should have more than one generator.
One small generator for when consumption is minimal such as at night. This also saves a lot of fuel running s small generator for small loads versus a large generator at a low loads.
A 12kw propane generator may use 1 to 1.5 gph with no load. My Honda EU 2000i will run 8 hrs with a 300 watt load running the fan on my wood furnace and some LED lights during a winter night.
90cummins
ultrarunner
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How often do you load bank your Diesels?
buickanddeere
Super Member
A diesel is designed to operate at full rated rpms at full rated load continuous for hours at a time . Anything else is looking for trouble . Combustion chamber and exhaust temperature temperatures drop and clean combustion does not occur.
Partial loads and varying loads are best operated with a gasser.
Partial loads and varying loads are best operated with a gasser.
90cummins
Veteran Member
No particular schedule but when I start them to exercise I run them with a load for 30 minutes minimum.
I loaded my Honda EU2000i & ran it out of fuel because it was mostly idling while I painted and I wanted to purge the fuel system of all the old gasoline to refill with non-ethanol.
Yesterday I started a load test on my 24v battery backup system at 1:40pm and shut it down this morning after 18 hours to verify the battery capacity.
The voltage and specific gravity put the L16RE-B batteries at 65%.
I'm now going to use my 4kw L70 Yanmar diesel which hasn't been run in 4 to 5 months to recharge the system and time how long it takes to charge the bank then measure the fuel consumed. This will be the first time I've run the batteries down to recharge with my diesel.
My inverter will limit the load on the generator to 3500 watts.
In the event of a major outage I want to know how much fuel I will need to survive at least a week with no power using my batteries and generators while minimizing my electrical loads.
Will post the results.
90cummins
I loaded my Honda EU2000i & ran it out of fuel because it was mostly idling while I painted and I wanted to purge the fuel system of all the old gasoline to refill with non-ethanol.
Yesterday I started a load test on my 24v battery backup system at 1:40pm and shut it down this morning after 18 hours to verify the battery capacity.
The voltage and specific gravity put the L16RE-B batteries at 65%.
I'm now going to use my 4kw L70 Yanmar diesel which hasn't been run in 4 to 5 months to recharge the system and time how long it takes to charge the bank then measure the fuel consumed. This will be the first time I've run the batteries down to recharge with my diesel.
My inverter will limit the load on the generator to 3500 watts.
In the event of a major outage I want to know how much fuel I will need to survive at least a week with no power using my batteries and generators while minimizing my electrical loads.
Will post the results.
90cummins
90cummins
Veteran Member
No particular schedule but when I start them to exercise I run them with a load for 30 minutes minimum.
I loaded my Honda EU2000i & ran it out of fuel because it was mostly idling while I painted and I wanted to purge the fuel system of all the old gasoline to refill with non-ethanol.
Yesterday I started a load test on my 24v battery backup system at 1:40pm and shut it down this morning after 18 hours to verify the battery capacity.
The voltage and specific gravity put the L16RE-B batteries at 65%.
I'm now going to use my 4kw L70 Yanmar diesel which hasn't been run in 4 to 5 months to recharge the system and time how long it takes to charge the bank then measure the fuel consumed. This will be the first time I've run the batteries down to recharge with my diesel.
My inverter will limit the load on the generator to 3500 watts.
In the event of a major outage I want to know how much fuel I will need to survive at least a week with no power using my batteries and generators while minimizing my electrical loads.
Will post the results.
90cummins
I loaded my Honda EU2000i & ran it out of fuel because it was mostly idling while I painted and I wanted to purge the fuel system of all the old gasoline to refill with non-ethanol.
Yesterday I started a load test on my 24v battery backup system at 1:40pm and shut it down this morning after 18 hours to verify the battery capacity.
The voltage and specific gravity put the L16RE-B batteries at 65%.
I'm now going to use my 4kw L70 Yanmar diesel which hasn't been run in 4 to 5 months to recharge the system and time how long it takes to charge the bank then measure the fuel consumed. This will be the first time I've run the batteries down to recharge with my diesel.
My inverter will limit the load on the generator to 3500 watts.
In the event of a major outage I want to know how much fuel I will need to survive at least a week with no power using my batteries and generators while minimizing my electrical loads.
Will post the results.
90cummins
