Onan Emerald III 6500 Hunting/surging when at idle and with load.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 เม.ย. 2021
- This is my Onan Emerald III That I have been working on, I’m posting it in hopes to get some of my question answered as to why it is hunting and surging after all the parts I have replaced (listed below). If any of you have any thoughts I would appreciate the input, thanks!
{new parts}
Control board
Starter solenoid
Starter
Fuel filter
Fuel pump
Spark plugs
air filter
Points
Condenser
Carburetor
Fuel hoses
Got the same problem. What "I think",, where I now live,, the refineries seem too have an issue getting there ethynol percentage right. In Texas, they have, or had a limit of 8%.
And the wieghts and measurement do test not only the volume, A gallon better be 1-gal or your fined, but also the percentage. So I really never had many fuel problems like auto in tank fuel pumps, carbs on lawn mowers or chain saws going array. Till I moved too Oregon. On my Onan, my 1st issue was in the carb. Tore it down too clean it up and examine it,, found little broke of chunks of rubber in the bowl. Cleaned it all up, put her together and she ran smooth as a new borns butt. Shut it before bed,, next morning the same problem. Hard start, rough idle,, surging and shutting down on me. Tools back out, carb back off torn apart and,,, fresh new rubber in the main jet and bowl. Took off the fuel pump, tore into it and whall lah! A neoprene sealing washer in the bottom twist cap,, was deteriorating. So being 85 miles from anywhere I created a new one and all was fine,,, for about a week and instead of chunks this time,, it was becoming goooie, melting.
Now being off grid as I chose too be,, ya gotta have gas for your trips for materials and ur stors,, and lotts of it when your building. Midwest 5 gal Gas cans, 5 of um "more Junk plastic crap" BURNS REAL HOT! Anyway everyone of those cans "spout seals" leaked after bout a week. One night in town at truck stop taking a shower, a tanker driver was filling the tanks and I proposed a question; how often do you guys go through those big ass 5-6" filling hoses? His anserw stunned me. Bout once a month here in Oregon. He added; when I worked for an out fit in Nevada we never really had an issue. But here,, we had a test on thee ethyenol content because of our suspicions bout a month ago,, it was 14%!
Well I said,, what material can I use too eliminate thee issues Im having? Far as I know,, nothing. He did say that some stations have 0% offered for more a gal.
But Im believing old school cork material gaskets might be effective resistant wise. Dont know how too test percentage content,, but I am going too try a little two cycle oil in my gas too hopfully calm down the deteriation process.
Wow, well that does really suck honestly. down here in Florida the gas isn't much better, but I have had any issues at least with my Onan's rubber degrading due to the content of the gas being higher than advertised. I have had it ruin one of my boats and had to re-do the fuel system in it, but soon after that issue I just started running ethanol free gas in all my boats and lawnmowing equipment. As for my motorhome today, I still use standard 87 octane in it for the gas, which both the main engine, and my Onan Genset feeds off of. So far so good on that, however I don't live full time in my RV, as well as I also have a hybrid inverter system that is heavy duty and picks up a lot of slack from the genset. So my Onan doesn't work very hard all in all. I mostly just use it to recharge my 12KW battery bank that my inverter uses to run everything in my RV, including the rooftop air unit. Hopefully you can find a trustworthy gas source then, and I would upgrade to Neoprene rubber for anything coming into contact with ethanol that is degrading (fuel lines, washes, ETC.). Hopefully that does it for you at the end of the day, and if you have any further questions, feel free to leave a comment! I hope you can fix your gas situation with your Genset, it is truly sad to see how much damage ethanol can really cause, I wish you the best of luck!
~ Will
Comment. For such a top of the line "Cadillac" of Gen's, these things seem too have alot of issues. Ya get um to par, tuned up, oil changed and cleaned up,, they become smooth ass nice. For about a week at 5 hrs a day. Then,, its a fuel pump, a carb or a circuit board. WTF!! Cant this country produce anything worth the cost anymore, including GM's caddy?
I had a hand me down 17 year old Generac 5500, short of a carb replacement screwed up by an idiot putting a used inline filter back in back wards,, it started on the 3rd pull everytime I used it after new carb install. Used a little oil though. But ALL OF THEM DO.
IT SERVED ME 8- 10 HOURS A DAY 7DAYS A WEEK FOR 2 MORE YEARS! It burnt up along with my 18 acres of forrest in the 2021 bootleg fire😢. Got this used motor sardine can that came with a 6500,, and its been a battle keeping it running to do any building. I have been looking at buying a NEW Generac, but the NEW ONES, come with all that digital weak link crap are as dependable as our U.S. NATIONAL FOREST SERVICE at maintaining the forest too PREVENT FOREST FIRES. Smokeys right "only you" though you pay in tax's for the service,,, can prevent forest fires. While they the quote; SERVICE,, burn your tax dollars playing grabass every work day.
That's truly unfortunate, I'm sorry to hear about your forest that burned up in 21', as well as your faithful genset.
As for Onan as a long term genset, I cant say I run mine continuously for 5 hours a day for 7 days a week, that is a heavy amount of runtime for any genset. Of course with proper maintenance done at the proper intervals, most gensets should be able to output at that level for extended periods of time. But that's like the equivalent of putting 30,000 miles a year on your car. Yeah its going to hold up if its reliable, but even after holding up for so long, even the most durable of parts will wear out and need replacing. That's the big fault of any engine, or anything with a large amount of moving parts, friction is the true enemy of time, and it will patiently destroy everything. That's why for my RV off-grid set up, I mostly rely on a 4000W pure sine wave inverter, that is powered by 5 LiFePo4 batteries, at a total of 1000AH in parallel. The inverter system has proven to me to be extremely reliable, to the point where I would basically only run my genset for around 3-4 hours a day to run everything in my RV, including charging up my battery bank, and then just switch over to my inverter for the rest of the night, and into the next morning. It really saves my Genset being able to put the heavy lifting on the inverter, which has less moving parts, and saves me long-term in time and money for upkeep and repairs. I can't say I've ever really been disappointed by my Onan after I finished repairing it, and documenting my repairs for TH-cam, but I sure am glad to have a duel system, that rely on each other to share the load, rather than loading my genset constantly.
At the end of the day, reliability is hard to find today, especially in moving parts, so if you manage to find it, be sure to hold on to it for sure! Or just make the ones you have last as long as possible, by caring extra for them, and change their oil early every time. That's the least we can do for our hard working machines, especially when they do so much to keep us comfortable. I hate how intricate they have made modern items as well with computers and too many sensors, but sometimes we just have to learn to adapt and go with the flow when there is no other option, and just learn to make it work as best as possible.
If your Onan is still having trouble today, feel free to leave another comment detailing what's going on, and maybe I can help a bit, or at the least point you into a direction that will. Many kind and knowledgeable people helped me get my Onan where it is today, running smooth and strong, and I couldn't have done it without them, its always nice when you have others to help. So I wish you luck with your genset, and I hope you take care and stay safe out there!
~ Will