Genset goes bad at the Lake

While up at the lake with the group, I ran my genset whenever I needed to get on the internet with my satellite setup. It a Cummins ‘Onan’ brand with a 6500 Watt output (that is 54 amps at 120Vac).

The third day of use (about an hour per day), it just stopped. No winding down or noises or anything weird before hand, just dead stop. It weighs around 400 lbs or so and lives in a cubby hole that is just under the drivers seat. I enlisted some help and we worked a bit on what we could reach. Found that the main generator bearing had seized up. It was encouraging that after we knocked out some chunks of broken metal, the shaft spun and the starter would spin the engine and generator. Over the next several days, I worked on finding resources and equipment that would allow me to work on the thing myself. Eventually, Gordon talked me out of doing that. I first called Cummins NW here in Portland and scheduled an appointment for two weeks later. Then I called several mobile RV repair services and asked them who they would have work on it. Two of them suggested I have EC Power Systems at 1835 NW 21st AVE in Portland, (503-224-3623) do the job. Around this time, Cummins techs went out on strike.

EC got me in two days later and in the 30 minutes I was waiting out in the parking lot and talking to the other RV’ers that had arrived I heard the technicians diagnose and quote 3 other RV generator problems. These guys really gave me a sense that they knew what they were doing.

Anyway, I talked to my assigned tech and explained the symptoms and history of the genset. He fudged a little on time but didn’t try to snow me or bloat the quote like Cummins had. I already knew that it would cost me around $600 to $1000 from Cummins and they made me think that if I took it there $1200 would likely be the end bill. I decided to leave it with EC.

Here’s their building:

My rig doesn’t have a genset roll out tray like newer rigs have so there has to be some grunt work with pry bars and a fork lift to get the thing out of it’s cubby. One interesting thing the tech told me was that those trays, since they have to be open on the bottom, gather lots of road debris and seldom work as expected so he would rather see my type of arrangement that just calls for removal of four bolts and then pry out the genset. He doesn’t need to repair the sliding tray afterwards either.

Here’s the guys getting the thing out:

A little more grunting:

And the bad bearing end of the thing, you can just see the ball bearings (shouldn’t be able to):

Here it is a couple days later all fixed. The tech tells me it runs like glass. Good news.

And here’s my technician, Russ, great tech, did exactly what needed to be done or that I asked him to do and no more and did a great repair job to boot:

I definitely recommend this place for genset repairs and servicing. Their shop charge is $77 per hour, the local Cummins NW shop charges $97. They are a little hard to get to since they’re downtown but the effort is worth it. The genset is very quiet now and my propane/monoxide detector doesn’t go off every hour of use anymore, so I guess that the genset was out of adjustment too…outputting too much unburned fuel. And the cost was $632. In my range and much better then having to buy a new one for $4400.

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