Your last generator Maintenance Run

[Racer4]

Were those exercise hours or loaded hours.
Professionally installed standby generators are sized for worst case load scenario. During an outage I would be conserving power (minimal load) to conserve resources.
Perhaps the engine was not adequately loaded during this break-in period.
Just a thought.

Good point. Assuming 10 minutes a week over 2.5 years brings it to 55 hours with load on it.

She’s probably frugal with her energy usage anyway. So it probably wasn’t worked hard at all.

Mine gets a workout. Especially if we’re all home for a snow day. Wife does laundry on those days. Then it gets to run the well pump, washer and dryer plus everything else.

 

[3930dave]

Air cooled 993cc vanguard. Oil change interval is 100 hours. Capacity is 78-80 ounces of oil. The Briggs service kit has Briggs synthetic oil included. No leaks anywhere so it had to get burnt.

Thanks - I'm not familiar with that class of Briggs.

Rgds, D.

 

[arto98607]

Sorry, not trying to steer conversation away from generators, but this may be the same type engine?

The engine in my Vermeer stump cutter may be the same model 35 hp Briggs Vanguard.

These are Briggs & Stratton design, manufactured by Daihatsu (a subsidiary of Toyota) in Japan.

They get pretty hard workout in this service and I stick to 40 - 50 hour oil change.

This one has 870 hours on and so far never needed oil addition, however it gives slight puff of blue smoke when restarted while still hot after hard working!
To me that indicates it may be time to check & change the valve stem seals soon.

 

[JRH02]

Did my aunt’s Briggs 20kw yesterday. I originally changed the oil at 9 hrs with a Briggs service kit back in May of 2023.

At 77 hours yesterday, the oil was only showing about 3/8” on the dipstick. Changed the oil, filters and plugs.

Couldn’t believe how low the oil was. In 68 hours, it burned almost a quart. My generac never consumed that much oil. Mine would burn a little when I used TSC Traveller full synthetic. Doesn’t burn any when using Mobil 1.

Being a racer by user name doesn't mean he knows anything about engines until they blow up.

 

[JRH02]

Sorry, not trying to steer conversation away from generators, but this may be the same type engine?

The engine in my Vermeer stump cutter may be the same model 35 hp Briggs Vanguard.

These are Briggs & Stratton design, manufactured by Daihatsu (a subsidiary of Toyota) in Japan.

They get pretty hard workout in this service and I stick to 40 - 50 hour oil change.

This one has 870 hours on and so far never needed oil addition, however it gives slight puff of blue smoke when restarted while still hot after hard working!
To me that indicates it may be time to check & change the valve stem seals soon.


View attachment 4432713

Yup. Good engines. I have the 38hp on a Woodmizer. It runs a LOT of stuff all at the same time. But I can overload and abuse it. I choose not to do so.

Think about it.... If you go much bigger that this you are in VW Beetle range.

 

[3930dave]

Sorry, not trying to steer conversation away from generators, but this may be the same type engine?

The engine in my Vermeer stump cutter may be the same model 35 hp Briggs Vanguard.

These are Briggs & Stratton design, manufactured by Daihatsu (a subsidiary of Toyota) in Japan.

They get pretty hard workout in this service and I stick to 40 - 50 hour oil change.

This one has 870 hours on and so far never needed oil addition, however it gives slight puff of blue smoke when restarted while still hot after hard working!
To me that indicates it may be time to check & change the valve stem seals soon.


View attachment 4432713

Lateral (or even general) tech info.... all good here.....

Ad-Hominem noise..... not.

Rgds, D.

 

[Racer4]

Being a racer by user name doesn't mean he knows anything about engines until they blow up.

???

 

[MongoCT]

I had some issues with my old gen last year, detailed in another thread. Part of my corrective action plan (to what was reasonably careful storage in the past) is to run my generators at least every 2-3 months.

i just went through this, a problem of my own making. I have a Honda eu6500, I've had it for quite some time. Maybe 2008, 2009?

It's located in my side yard storage area, I'm there year 'round, so I typically run it once a month or so for 20-30 minutes.

I had the generator pulled away from the house when I was building stone walls. Generator ran out of gas and since it was the end of the day I put it away but I forgot to turn the key OFF. I made a gas run a few days later and filled up the generator, tried to fire it off, that's when I saw the key and discovered the dead battery. Generator sat for quite a while with a tank of gas and a dead battery.

Battery (original) wouldn't hold a charge after I killed it through neglect, so I got a new battery and that's when I discovered the contaminated fuel. About the worst I've ever seen.

Drained the tank, pulled the tank off the generator frame, put a chain in the tank and agitated it to clean out all the crud. Pulled the fuel lines and the carburetor and did an unltrasonic cleaning.

Been running like a champ ever since. With maintenance runs!

 

[JRH02]

Lateral (or even general) tech info.... all good here.....

Ad-Hominem noise..... not.

Rgds, D.

Most folk have no idea what you said. And they don't care.

 

[3930dave]

Most folk have no idea what you said. And they don't care.

No Shortage of Don't Care........ Roger That.

Rgds, D.