Newbie and MEP-002A

[dlsacco]

Hello, I'm a newcomer, living in the mountains of Colorado, and with the floods, I'm living in an area mostly cut off. I expect to be thoroughly cut off this winter, with the potential of power cuts to go with it so have forayed into the surplus world to get a generator capable of running 24/7 that I couldn't otherwise afford. I bid on and won a GL MEP-002a with 1200 hours. Looks in excellent shape. No rust, nothing seems to be missing. Read everything I could find on here and smokestack before doing more than unloading it. Checked all the filters and they are new and clean with the service date on the housings. Oil was drained, but what little was left in the sump shows no sign of having run. It came with batteries, so put them on the desulphanator and they are charging up if not holding..time will tell. checked fuel pump control and it was smooth and easily moved, turned over by hand with no issues. Tried to fire it up and it coughs and sputters on what felt like one cylinder then halts, though the oil pressure does come up. Checked the intake manifold and it was HOT so I guess the intake heaters are good. Ohmed the glow plugs and one reads opened. Pulled that one out, and with what I read on here immediately recognized that the part number CH41 was incorrect..yup stamped right on it, 11 volts. It also looked recently changed. I'm guessing the had a problem, changed the faulty glow plug with a wrong voltage / part number unit and it promptly burned out, so they assumed bigger problems and set it aside....New ones already on order! Thank you all for the excellent wiki's and posts that let me check this unit out and diagnose this problem so quickly! You're awesome!

 

[Isaac-1]

Looks like a good unit, hopefully you will get these issues sorted out soon, do let us know how it goes.

Ike

 

[storeman]

Welcome to the board. Excellent looking unit!
Jerry

 

[Harleyd315]

Good Luck!!!!!

 

[steelypip]

Looks like it's all there. Definitely a keeper even if it has internal problems. Be careful to remove and clean out the fuel tank before you try to start it.

 

[steelandcanvas]

Welcome! Lots of "brains to pick" between here and Smokstack, you're in good hands!

 

[Recovry4x4]

That's one heck of a first post. Welcome aboard, congrats on the genset and thanks for learning how to fish on Steel Soldiers!

 

[Munchies]

Nice set of 2hns! Hoope they can be brought back to life. Great batteries

 

[dlsacco]

2 sets each of manifold heaters and glow plugs arrived today (already building my spares stores) Replaced the defective glow plug, put it all back together and on second crank it roared into life. Lovely thrum of a low speed diesel. Tweeked the voltage into range. It adjusts, and holds point, frequency set up for 60 Hz. Oil good at 35, and charge range in the green. With set for 240 single phase, measured output and good 120 line to neutral and 240 line to line. Put a load of about 1000 watts on, and fly ball didn't make the adjustment. Had to tweek up the revs manually. Added another 500 watts of load and it needed adjusting again. Holds point perfectly, won't adjust so there's a little work to do there, and the load / amp meter is just bouncing around zero. Either meter is dead, or something in the shunt circuit needs work.

 

[steelypip]

Looks like you've got a keeper. Governor adjustment is detailed in the manual, but a good first step is just to make sure that everything on the linkage moves freely and doesn't have excessive slop. I have yet to hear of one of these problems that doesn't end up being linkage and adjustment problems, rather than internal problems with the governor itself.

 

[Ray70]

Welcome to S.S! Like the other guys said, check the TM for the governor adjustment procedure. Perform the Low speed, high speed and droop adjustments. One of mine was doing the same thing and it turned out to be the droop adjustment (spring/star wheel) was set too high. By high I mean the spring was hooked too far up on the "worm" screw and needed to be brought down by turning the star wheel in the CC direction. Then put a good load on it and see how your Hz and %Load meters react. This is assuming it is now running good and you have run it a bit to get everything else shaken down. BTW, nice looking unit, best of luck with it.

 

[M925]

I sprayed crack in mine.....I wouldn't recommend using ether.....but mine looked like a SHOWER of black water as it ran for the first few minutes.......LOUD as can be!

 

[dangier]

Ditto what everyone else has said. You're almost there. Sounds like just fine tuning on this one!
David

 

[Another Ahab]

Hey, Colorado. Welcome to you from here in Virginia.

 

[dlsacco]

Continuing to check my way through the unit. The load meter is definitely dead. Confirmed by substituting my multimeter. As it's a 0-1 amp I should be able to find a cheap commercial 1 amp meter and calibrate it until I can locate an original replacement. Inspected the lower AC cabinet as a part of the tour through the unit. Looks clean.

 

[dlsacco]

Started on the governor issue. Started by checking and adjusting valve clearances. Pulled the cover...it's like new? Should this be this clean having been run some?? Valves were well out of spec. Set per the manual. Seems to run better...or maybe it's just the placebo effect. Set the min and max speeds, and lubricated all the linkage. Noticed that the vertical linkage rod that comes down to the injector pump from the governor rods seems to be in two parts, and one part slides down over the other then springs back when released. Is this the way this is supposed to work??? Pictures enclosed. Thanks for any guidance as I haven't figured that out in the manual yet.

 

[Ray70]

The linkage rod is correct. Its 2 spring loaded halves that will move in and out if you push on it with your finger. After setting the min and max engine speeds did you adjust the droop setting? If the machine is not holding frequency when you add a load to it, the droop setting is probably out of adjustment. Follow the TM procedure and lower the spring by turning the star wheel. Keep lowering it until you notice the engine start hunting a little ( RPM fluctuating up and down steadily) then bring the spring up a little bit until it is no longer hunting, then apply a good load and see how it reacts. If you get it so it holds Hz within +/- 2 Hz or better, consider it done. Don't make the mistake I and a few others made and keep tinkering with things trying to get it better than it needs to be!

 

[steelypip]

I almost added more detail on the droop setting last post, but decided against it in the interest of brevity. Now seems a good time to talk about what it is, what it does, and what overdoing it does.

Basically the droop setting controls the sensitivity of the governor - it adjusts the mechanical advantage that the flyweight governor has over the injection linkage return spring. If you think of the linkage arm as an amplifier, the droop adjustment controls the gain. The spring has a spring function (typically a number of oz/inch of extension) and the governor pulls with a fairly linear relation to speed near the nominal 1800 RPM set point. You control the set point speed by adjusting the anchor point of the governor spring.

If you have excessive droop and you know that a) the engine is responsive to speed adjustment to meet load at the speed control knob, and b) the governor linkage moves freely, then you need to do the droop adjustment procedure.

As Ray70 said, avoid the temptation to improve over the specification in the manual. Just like with an audio amplifier, cranking the gain up too far results in a feedback loop - the generator starts hunting around the setpoint instead of holding a speed that is a little high at no load and 1.5-2 Hz lower at rated load. The actual tendency to feedback and frequency of hunt is determined by the inertia and friction in the governor and linkage (think LC circuit if you're familiar with those). The only way you're going to be able to adjust the sensitivity of the governor to a smaller than stock value is by changing governor components to alter the fundamental characteristics of the system, and it's just not worth the trouble.

For the record: my UPSs (I have several) all like the MEP-002A just fine. If the generator has a momentary sag or surge in response to load they click briefly over to inverter power and when the generator stabilizes at 59.5 Hz or whatever they click right back on to line power, just as when the utility transformer down the road is trying to clear a tree branch during a storm. As long as your major loads cycle on and off over a period of minutes, nothing sensitive will especially care about the small sags and spikes caused by load changes. My set's actual droop performance is 1.6 Hz droop from no load to rated load, and this seems pretty typical of an MEP002A/003A in good order.

 

[dlsacco]

Thank you both for the quickness of your replies and the fantastic information that they contained. I currently only have about 1.5 KW of load to slap on and off the generator, so a full load no load test is a bit tough at the moment though I have started scrounging for failed dryers to take the heating elements out of to construct a 5 KW load bank. With what load I have the unit had a droop of around 5-6 Hz. I started trying to adjust up the gain, but had a problem with the spring lower on the threads where I didn't have enough adjustment in the high range / low range to stay in spec particularly the low speed set point dropped so low that at full throttle it wouldn't hit 60 Hz at full throttle, with no more adjustment on the throttle cable nut. I got side tracked with the springy rod wondering if there was something broken there and put it on pause till I was sure what was happening, and looking to assemble enough of a load to properly assess the droop.

 

[Ray70]

When you move the spring lower you will notice that your max speed can be affected because you have changed the length of the lever arm acting on the governor. You need to look towards the other end of that spring and you will notice a small screw that comes through from the front fan cover. If the linkage arm is touching the end of this screw at full throttle you need to back the screw out some to gain more RPM. Look at the end of the generator fan cover and at about 10:00 you should see a small flat head screw sticking through the cover. Turn it counterclockwise to increase RPM.