MEP-005a plasic tank questions

[smurph]

I got 3 MEP-005As at auction the other day. I already have two up and running. Then came the last one. It shows 17 hours on the meter and by all accounts it looks new. Even the tires on the M200A trailer are new. 1989 manufacture date. So it must have been refurbished. All of the hoses look new with shiny plating on the fittings. The control panel looks new with a very red (not faded) battle short switch. Bright shiny bolts and washers all over the

Of the 3, I really thought this one would be the easiest to bring back to life. So we tackled the other 2 first. And I got them running in less than 8 hours with my step dad's help. But this one... we were not so lucky. No fuel.

The first thing I noticed was when I put fuel into the tank was that the filler neck overran. The others would take fuel as fast as you could dump it in. So I took the strainer out of the filler neck and there was a whole bunch of what looked like absorbent material that I use to use on oil spills when I had a service station. I had originally though that it was some sort of baffle material. But this stuff was stuffed into the filler neck and into the tank just below the filler neck and was nowhere else inside the tank. Has anyone seen this? Are the plastic tanks supposed to have baffle material in them? Maybe someone just never stuffed it in the tank properly?

I removed the material from the filler neck but I saved it in case it is really needed. Then I dumped 10 gallons in the tank. The fuel filter canisters had filters in them along with some very spoiled fuel. So I replaced the filters and cleaned out all of the varnish smelling stuff. I took the day tank off and emptied it of the foul smelling stuff too and washed it out. The pumps ran but no fuel was lifted to the day tank. So I removed the pumps and found that the check valves in the bottom of each pump were stuck. Hopefully this was the fuel lift problem. At this point, I ran out of time and I will have to finish up tomorrow.

Steve

 

[smurph]

The fuel pump check valves were the issue and it is pumping fuel correctly now. The engine cranks and runs fine.

As to the stuff in the fuel filler neck, well... I looked at this six different ways and I have come to the conclusion that the material stuffed into the filler neck was just absorbent towels. As I was cleaning up the rest of the generator frame, I found the same material below the oil pan where someone used it to clean up an oil spill. It did look similar to the stuff I used to clean up oil spills at my service station. Now I have to wonder what possessed someone to stuff that into the filler neck?

Now to fix the Hz gauge and high voltage problem.

Steve

 

[Munchies]

Probably to keep fuel from sloshing out or some random storage procedure somebody came up with.