jrcampbe
New member
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- Minneapolis, MN
Thanks to all of you for sharing your knowledge about these great old generators.
I bought an MEP-002a from South Dakota after reading these forums and the TMs and learning a lot about the units. My generator is a 2007 rebuild, with 12 hours on the clock. All new hoses, hose clamps, and wire ties, repainted tan. It came with the canvas bag with what I think is the 55-gallon drum plug, a -12 manual, and a few fittings I don't recognize. It also had the slide hammer, but I can't find the ground rods. I seem to recall a post where someone said the aux fuel tube and ground rods are often stored on the skid somewhere. Battery tie downs were there, with new hardware, but the jumper was missing.
I installed Speddmon's excellent spin-on oil filter adapter and checked the fuel filters. The fuel system and fuel filters all looked new. I left the new-looking filters in it. Same with air filter and oil filter, but I discarded the canister oil filter in favor of a spin on.
The unit was drained of oil, but there was a little bit of still golden-colored oil on the dipstick and in the oil filter canister. I put a gallon of 5w-30 in it (I live in Minnesota).
No batteries, and there's where it gets interesting, I installed two 51R batteries and when I connected the ground, I got a small electrical fire near the voltage regulator. It was the capacitor burning up. It was a pretty big 150 uF, 50 V old-fashioned cap with two wires on it. I disconnected the battery and replaced the cap with a 100 uF Radio Shack axial-lead part until I can find a better replacement (after reading what this is for and learning the exact capacitance isn't critical). Connected the battery and the new cap blew with a loud bang. I noticed arcing at the starter and suddenly the braided ground strap beneath the starter (connecting the motor mount to the skid) became bright red and burned up. Total time maybe 10 seconds. So, ok, short somewhere near the starter. It turned out that when the positive starter cable was connected (coming from the positive battery terminal) it was installed with the lead pointing upwards, and it was in contact with the bottom of the shutter-box assembly. It looked like the connection twisted around while being tightened. There is now a little pinhole on the bottom of my shutter box where the lead welded itself on and then burned a hole.
This was easily fixed, and after replacing the engine to skid ground wire, I was able to start and run the generator. It quickly reached 40 psi oil pressure. I had forgotten to reattach the temperature switch lead to the shutter box after I reinstalled it (I had removed this to look for the short), so the engine would not stay running, but thanks to this forum I knew about the two cutoff switches and quickly realized what I had done. It was simple to tune to 240V/61.5 Hz unloaded per the TM. I haven't verified either reading yet with my multimeter. Fixed a small fuel leak from a loose drain tap on a fuel filter, then let it run about 5 minutes.
All this dicking around, including unloading from my pickup, two trips to Radio Shack and two trips to auto parts stores, only took about 6 hours. It definitely needs a shed, and I'm planning on building one before it snows. Next step is to make my cable to connect to the house transfer switch and see how much of the house it will run. You may have noticed that I don't have it grounded at the moment. I kept the AC breakers off, as I was just trying to get the engine running. I'll unbond the neutral and ground it to the house transfer switch before running it again.
My question for you all is how likely is it that the voltage regulator was destroyed when the capacitors burned up because of the short at the starter? What is the best way to check charging voltage and charging current? What are acceptable values?
Also, should I have some kind of terminal on my 10/4 wire to connect to the AC output terminals, or should I just clamp down on the bare wire?
Thanks again for all of the advice here on the forum!
Jim
I bought an MEP-002a from South Dakota after reading these forums and the TMs and learning a lot about the units. My generator is a 2007 rebuild, with 12 hours on the clock. All new hoses, hose clamps, and wire ties, repainted tan. It came with the canvas bag with what I think is the 55-gallon drum plug, a -12 manual, and a few fittings I don't recognize. It also had the slide hammer, but I can't find the ground rods. I seem to recall a post where someone said the aux fuel tube and ground rods are often stored on the skid somewhere. Battery tie downs were there, with new hardware, but the jumper was missing.
I installed Speddmon's excellent spin-on oil filter adapter and checked the fuel filters. The fuel system and fuel filters all looked new. I left the new-looking filters in it. Same with air filter and oil filter, but I discarded the canister oil filter in favor of a spin on.
The unit was drained of oil, but there was a little bit of still golden-colored oil on the dipstick and in the oil filter canister. I put a gallon of 5w-30 in it (I live in Minnesota).
No batteries, and there's where it gets interesting, I installed two 51R batteries and when I connected the ground, I got a small electrical fire near the voltage regulator. It was the capacitor burning up. It was a pretty big 150 uF, 50 V old-fashioned cap with two wires on it. I disconnected the battery and replaced the cap with a 100 uF Radio Shack axial-lead part until I can find a better replacement (after reading what this is for and learning the exact capacitance isn't critical). Connected the battery and the new cap blew with a loud bang. I noticed arcing at the starter and suddenly the braided ground strap beneath the starter (connecting the motor mount to the skid) became bright red and burned up. Total time maybe 10 seconds. So, ok, short somewhere near the starter. It turned out that when the positive starter cable was connected (coming from the positive battery terminal) it was installed with the lead pointing upwards, and it was in contact with the bottom of the shutter-box assembly. It looked like the connection twisted around while being tightened. There is now a little pinhole on the bottom of my shutter box where the lead welded itself on and then burned a hole.
This was easily fixed, and after replacing the engine to skid ground wire, I was able to start and run the generator. It quickly reached 40 psi oil pressure. I had forgotten to reattach the temperature switch lead to the shutter box after I reinstalled it (I had removed this to look for the short), so the engine would not stay running, but thanks to this forum I knew about the two cutoff switches and quickly realized what I had done. It was simple to tune to 240V/61.5 Hz unloaded per the TM. I haven't verified either reading yet with my multimeter. Fixed a small fuel leak from a loose drain tap on a fuel filter, then let it run about 5 minutes.
All this dicking around, including unloading from my pickup, two trips to Radio Shack and two trips to auto parts stores, only took about 6 hours. It definitely needs a shed, and I'm planning on building one before it snows. Next step is to make my cable to connect to the house transfer switch and see how much of the house it will run. You may have noticed that I don't have it grounded at the moment. I kept the AC breakers off, as I was just trying to get the engine running. I'll unbond the neutral and ground it to the house transfer switch before running it again.
My question for you all is how likely is it that the voltage regulator was destroyed when the capacitors burned up because of the short at the starter? What is the best way to check charging voltage and charging current? What are acceptable values?
Also, should I have some kind of terminal on my 10/4 wire to connect to the AC output terminals, or should I just clamp down on the bare wire?
Thanks again for all of the advice here on the forum!
Jim
