W4RLR
High Tech Hillbilly
Friday's the big day. Ready or not, the wife's mobile grooming van takes its first clients. Taking the salvage from a wrecked grooming van and installing everything in a new chassis, with no blueprints, no specifications, nothing but pictures of finished units to guide me has been a trip.
Two things didn't work, and several things that I thought I had broken DO work (including the rooftop A/C that I dropped four feet) The 7KW generator would not run, but would crank. The local Onan shop said a new carb was in order.
I'm glad I waited. I was finishing the LP systems and got tired of crawling around under the truck. There was a little nagging voice inside my head telling me to work on the generator. So I started putzing around, got it to actually run if I held the choke closed. Then I noticed a little knob labeled "Altitude Adjustment".
So I started adjusting.
Pretty soon I didn't have to hold the choke, as the engine began to run well on its own. There was a lot of smoke from burning oil, but as the generator had been in storage for over two years, stored on its side, I figured that there were stuck rings and accumulated oil in one of the cylinders. The smoke dissipated. The engine began to run like a Swiss watch.
It ran for over an hour that way until I shut the engine down.
So I saved over $300 in parts and labor. I'll fill another boat tank and add some Seafoam to the tank to clean out any remaining crud. To say I was a happy camper would be an understatement.
Hearing voices...either there is a higher power looking out after me, or I have been incredibly lucky this year, coming back from kidney failure and a bum ticker. Either way, it made my day.
Two things didn't work, and several things that I thought I had broken DO work (including the rooftop A/C that I dropped four feet) The 7KW generator would not run, but would crank. The local Onan shop said a new carb was in order.
I'm glad I waited. I was finishing the LP systems and got tired of crawling around under the truck. There was a little nagging voice inside my head telling me to work on the generator. So I started putzing around, got it to actually run if I held the choke closed. Then I noticed a little knob labeled "Altitude Adjustment".
So I started adjusting.
Pretty soon I didn't have to hold the choke, as the engine began to run well on its own. There was a lot of smoke from burning oil, but as the generator had been in storage for over two years, stored on its side, I figured that there were stuck rings and accumulated oil in one of the cylinders. The smoke dissipated. The engine began to run like a Swiss watch.
It ran for over an hour that way until I shut the engine down.
So I saved over $300 in parts and labor. I'll fill another boat tank and add some Seafoam to the tank to clean out any remaining crud. To say I was a happy camper would be an understatement.
Hearing voices...either there is a higher power looking out after me, or I have been incredibly lucky this year, coming back from kidney failure and a bum ticker. Either way, it made my day.
