Generator issues/help

[TheMan419]

deleted duplicate post.

 

[RalphVa]

SeaFoam does an excellent job of keeping carbs clean or cleaning out carbs. I've avoided numerous carb teardowns with SeaFoam. Should use Stabil, too.

One of the many reasons why we went to a whole house (12.5 kw all electric 4400 sq ft house) diesel generator.

Ralph

 

[TheMan419]

SeaFoam does an excellent job of keeping carbs clean or cleaning out carbs. I've avoided numerous carb teardowns with SeaFoam. Should use Stabil, too.

One of the many reasons why we went to a whole house (12.5 kw all electric 4400 sq ft house) diesel generator.

Ralph

Yep I regularly use stabil on the generator fuel since it is likely to sit. On the mower it is only used at the end of the season since I run through that fuel fairly quickly. The diesel tractor gets Power Service Anti Gel starting in about October around these parts.

I try to keep things in tip top shape as best I can.

 

[grsthegreat]

i get a little nuts keeping spares for just about everything i have. it freaked out my wife last summer when she broke the riding lawn mower. she snapped off one of the pulley towers, whinc in turn took out a pressure spring on the drive pulley. i think she thought she would have a few days off from chores.

an hour later i gave her back a running mower. i could tell she was pissed.

one thing i do i i order replacement parts the same day i use a part. i have spare plugs for everything. spare filters, spare relays, you name it.

Luckily i dont need to order spare parts for my standby generator......i have enough parts in my service truck to rebuild the entire thing if need be.


also, during our last 14 hr power outage. One of my customers told me he ran out of fuel for his generator. all local gas stations had no power to move fuel. he ended up driving 24 miles to town to get fuel. he had no planning, and all his fuel tanks were empty, all propane tanks were empty. a nice new portable generator and no fuel to operate it. Also no oil to fill generator with. Some people just dont plan.

 

[ponytug]

X2 on keeping spares.

And, yes, it drives my wife nuts, too. "Why do you have all this crap?"

But, yes, on the ranch things tend to be up and running shortly after they go down. Of course, my goal is not to have them go down in the first place...

When do I use my generator? When it is mission critical. So, why wouldn't I have spares?

I have to confess to having backup backup generators. By way of explanation, we live in a rural area, in a fire area, in an earthquake zone, where it snows. We are way down any list of important areas to restore power to. I have been through enough "100 year" events to know that improbable things happen more frequently than conventional wisdom suggests. Prior, small earthquakes have cracked underground water pipes, so, yes, more spares. As far as I am concerned, the tractor paid for itself the day I had to excavate two feet down through twenty feet of sopping wet clay soil from a broken main waterline. It felt like each shovel full weighed sixty pounds.

Stay safe out there.

All the best,

Peter

 

[murphy1244]

The carb repairman in a can works again! Good news TheMan419..

 

[BravoXray]

About two years ago I was given a free 7,000 watt BlackMax generator that had been submerged in a flooded RV park. The owner figured it was junk as the Honda GX390 engine block was cracked in two places from water freezing in it after the flooding subsided.
Took it home and tore it apart, yep the crankcase was split in two places. Went to the Honda parts web site and looked up all the parts I needed to repair it, crankcase, gaskets, bearings, piston rings, etc. Total was only ~$150, and I also needed the battery charger board and rubber receptacle covers, so total parts were about $200.
I cleaned everything up and put it back together, it started right up and ran like a champ. I load tested it, and it was putting out full rated power.

Saturday morning at 1:30AM the power went out because of an ice storm in out area. Figured it would be back on soon, but after looking at the NIPSCO outage map, I knew it would be a day or so until we got power again. Picked the generator up with the Kubota and brought it up to the house, fired it up and plugged it in, and had power for everything in the house. Shut it down, checked the oil and topped off the fuel a couple of times and it ran until 4:00PM Sunday afternoon.

Worth every penny I have in it.

 

[ponytug]

Nice job! Thanks for sharing it.
What are in the blue tanks on your workbench? Seems like an intriguing set up.
All the best,
Peter

 

[Beeenvenue]

Remember air at 0F is roughly 22% more dense than air at 100F which COULD explain part of the choke issue. Same thing - in reverse - as to why Phoenix has to curtail some aircraft operations during by the hottest part of the summer (there it has to do with lift not engine performance but same idea)

 

[3930dave]

The carb repairman in a can works again! Good news TheMan419..

I'm not much of a mechanic-in-a-can guy, but SF is the closest I've found to the real-deal stuff..... I always keep some around, and know a few really happy folk who've got stuff running again by trying it.

:thumbsup: Rgds, D.

 

[BravoXray]

Nice job! Thanks for sharing it.
What are in the blue tanks on your workbench? Seems like an intriguing set up.
All the best,
Peter

The ones at the back of the bench are old ignition parts cabinets I painted blue. I keep all kinds of stuff in them.
Since this picture was taken I have cleaned things up a bit. Too many projects going at one time.

 

[ponytug]

���� that looks like a very productive area.

All the best,

Peter

 

[masscity]

I have a Champion 3500/4000 generator. About 10 year ago it started galloping and would only run with the choke half on. I talked to my mechanic and I told him that I thing the governor was acting up.

He said it was probably alcohol in the gas and said to use some Sea Foam. I used SF heavy for many hours and it finally cleared it up and runs normal.

We can buy alcohol free premium gas here and that's all I buy for everything except my truck.

 

[TheMan419]

About two years ago I was given a free 7,000 watt BlackMax generator that had been submerged in a flooded RV park. The owner figured it was junk as the Honda GX390 engine block was cracked in two places from water freezing in it after the flooding subsided.
Took it home and tore it apart, yep the crankcase was split in two places. Went to the Honda parts web site and looked up all the parts I needed to repair it, crankcase, gaskets, bearings, piston rings, etc. Total was only ~$150, and I also needed the battery charger board and rubber receptacle covers, so total parts were about $200.
I cleaned everything up and put it back together, it started right up and ran like a champ. I load tested it, and it was putting out full rated power.

Saturday morning at 1:30AM the power went out because of an ice storm in out area. Figured it would be back on soon, but after looking at the NIPSCO outage map, I knew it would be a day or so until we got power again. Picked the generator up with the Kubota and brought it up to the house, fired it up and plugged it in, and had power for everything in the house. Shut it down, checked the oil and topped off the fuel a couple of times and it ran until 4:00PM Sunday afternoon.

Worth every penny I have in it.

You and I were in the same power outage. We have AEP for our power. Lots of power went out late Friday/Early Saturday. Most folks not back up until Sunday/Monday. We were out from 6:45 p.m. Friday to about 5:54 p.m. Saturday so like 23 hours. I would have had enough fuel to get through that without issue. Did get caught a bit with my pants down on that.

Looking at a Natural Gas fired standby generator. Generac's website thinks I need a 16KW unit. Not sure if I want to invest the $$$ into that though. May just get the horse barn wired for generator as well and get another portable. That way I have a back up to the back up and can be comfortable if both of them are running and mostly comfortable if only one can answer the bell.

 

[BravoXray]

You and I were in the same power outage. We have AEP for our power. Lots of power went out late Friday/Early Saturday. Most folks not back up until Sunday/Monday. We were out from 6:45 p.m. Friday to about 5:54 p.m. Saturday so like 23 hours. I would have had enough fuel to get through that without issue. Did get caught a bit with my pants down on that.

Looking at a Natural Gas fired standby generator. Generac's website thinks I need a 16KW unit. Not sure if I want to invest the $$$ into that though. May just get the horse barn wired for generator as well and get another portable. That way I have a back up to the back up and can be comfortable if both of them are running and mostly comfortable if only one can answer the bell.

On my road, just a half mile up north, the power changes from AEP to NIPSCO. The AEP customers up there were never out of power.
This was the first time in almost 2 years we lost power, and that was due to a tornado/windshear that took down a dozen power poles south of me that feed power to my area.
Seems like some areas around South Bend loose power every time the wind blows more than 20 mph.

 

[TheMan419]

On my road, just a half mile up north, the power changes from AEP to NIPSCO. The AEP customers up there were never out of power.
This was the first time in almost 2 years we lost power, and that was due to a tornado/windshear that took down a dozen power poles south of me that feed power to my area.
Seems like some areas around South Bend loose power every time the wind blows more than 20 mph.

Hence the need for the generator! Knock on wood we have been in ths house for 5 years and this was "only" the third time we were without power long enough to warrant the generator being fired up. You are right that we do seem to have more power outages over here than you guys do over there. SWMBO wants to investigae a whole house automatic generator. I think I have her more convinced to get a second generator and just wire up her horse barn for generator so she can still have lights to give her lessons/do her training and have water in the barn when the power is out.

Then I can buy a new generator for the house and "donate" the old one to the use of the barn.

 

[grsthegreat]

here, if we lose power in winter, the horse waterers freeze up. i have them tied into the whole house generator.

 

[aczlan]

here, if we lose power in winter, the horse waterers freeze up. i have them tied into the whole house generator.

We put in a "frost free" waterer when we redid the barn (has a piece of 12-in pipe that goes down below the frost line and brings heat up), that will hold the water for the cows without freezing until we get down in the single digits for several days.
Only downside is it's a small tank so you have to have water pressure, if need be we could switch that over to use Town water instead of well water and not need any power on our end to keep the cows watered.
We have a couple options for generators ranging from a small (2000W peak) inverter generator to a 3 KW prime rated diesel generator to a 7 KW "Apache" brand diesel generator.
Right now everything's set up for just using extension cords, but I plan to eventually put in hardwired inputs for everything.


Aaron Z

 

[TheMan419]

here, if we lose power in winter, the horse waterers freeze up. i have them tied into the whole house generator.

Last couple of winters here we would have ice on the top in the morning but not a 5 gallon ice cube. However we should have a good couple months each winter where we would have 5 gallon ice cubes in the morning if there was no power. Our thought is to wire the barn up for its own portable generator. Then we have to portables so a back up to the back up in the worst case scenario. In the best case power to the house and the barn independent of each other.

Still looking at pricing on a whole house to tie the barn in as well for the heated buckets and the well out in the barn. The lights out there are all LED so no reall power draw even if we turn them all on at once.

 

[Diggin It]

^^^ From what I've been seeing while pricing my standby, you'd be looking at a serious chunk of change. I'm around $4,500 already and not even powered up yet. And I'm only doing a 16Kw unit for a one BR house with no barn or animals, outdoor heaters, etc.

I've been seeing 10Kw units that will run on propane and/or gasoline for under $1,000 that should more than handle your short term barn needs.