Picked up 6 MEP-802A gensets and will be documenting making them all runners here

[Chrispyny]

i'm saddened your friend chose a chinese made clone genset over something like a nice isuzu based genset who's mechanics are solid as a rock and parts far more plentiful.
What was his reason for choosing such a large, unknown brand of genset?
(I'm a 'larger genset' novice, i apologize if i sound arrogant, or simple, just curious).
Edit to add:
What i was thinking is a beautiful CAT based genset. I have seen them that size and i bet they are a pleasure to work on and maintain. Plus CAT has onroad mechanics and offer warranties if i recall.

 

[pclausen]

Believe me I hear you! He's an unusual fellow. He had plenty of money. When he comes to the states, I pick him up at the airport where he parks his private jet until he departs again, He sends the pilot back home to Denmark (flying commercial) until he's ready to leave again. I provided him with a quote for a nice used, low hour Cummins/Onan 35KW unit that came out of a Verizon Cell Site that was very well maintained with electronic controls for about the same price as this unit. He doesn't like buying used, period. But at the same time he doesn't want to pay the cost of quality made brand name stuff, at least when it comes to generators. Some folks like that are just not very logical in how they make their decisions. At first he figured that one of those 20kw Generac units from Lowes would do the job. At least I was able to talk him out of that one. My folks had one and it burned up after running 3 days straight after the large duratio (sp) storm a few years back. Since his will be left unattended for months on end, so a consumer grade unit wasn't an option. I'm off to pick up coolant and oil and misc other stuff to get it fired up. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

 

[dangier]

Since this unit will "run unattended for Months on end", are you the one that will be checking on it and be on call? I sold two units to neighbors and guess who does the checking, maintenance, and has to run over when they can not get the units started? Have to say that they are great neighbors though...

You have had a lot of machine work done. Do you know anything about Shenandoah Machine Shop? Got a LK that needs a little TLC.

David

 

[pclausen]

So the *house* will be left "unattended for Months on end", I don't expect the generator to run the whole time. Actually I try to swing by there about once per month to make sure everything is ok. Run the water, flush the toilets, drive the cars around a little, that kind of stuff. Yes, I'm the one on-call so to speak, if there are issues. I do that already for the unit at my mother's house (no longer a Generac!), as well at the unit(s) at my place.

I can't say that I'm familiar with Shenandoah Machine Shop. I have been using Valley Automotive Machine Shop in Waynesboro.

So I got fresh oil and coolant in the 36kw unit and added about 15 gallons of diesel, which still wasn't enough to turn off the low fuel alarm. Anyway, it fired right up and runs very smooth and quiet, which I hope is a sign of how it will perform down the road. I'm making some modifications so that it can accept a 2" conduit for the feed back to the transfer switch.

 

[dangier]

My error-happens when multitasking is pressed to extreme...
Never mind.. ;_)
Good luck with the new unit.

 

[Korgoth1]

Believe me I hear you! He's an unusual fellow. He had plenty of money. When he comes to the states, I pick him up at the airport where he parks his private jet until he departs again, He sends the pilot back home to Denmark (flying commercial) until he's ready to leave again. I provided him with a quote for a nice used, low hour Cummins/Onan 35KW unit that came out of a Verizon Cell Site that was very well maintained with electronic controls for about the same price as this unit. He doesn't like buying used, period. But at the same time he doesn't want to pay the cost of quality made brand name stuff, at least when it comes to generators. Some folks like that are just not very logical in how they make their decisions. At first he figured that one of those 20kw Generac units from Lowes would do the job. At least I was able to talk him out of that one. My folks had one and it burned up after running 3 days straight after the large duratio (sp) storm a few years back. Since his will be left unattended for months on end, so a consumer grade unit wasn't an option. I'm off to pick up coolant and oil and misc other stuff to get it fired up. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

+1 Generac=crap

I heard to stay away from the "home owner" units, but not much out of there "industrial" diesel lineup, until I worked on one of the cell tower units. At around 100hrs the controller gave out, then at around 250hrs the fan just came apart and ate the radiator. It's a "hino" diesel(japanese) so you have to get parts through generac dealer (napa cant help you now!) Oh my Lord, the customer service(I assume because they know you can't go anywhere else) is terrible, and everything is three times the price it should be, then you wait.

I haven't personally dealt with alot of different brands, but from what I hear/read Cat, Volvo-penta, and Onan are about the only ones worth anything, but I can see where $23,000 would be a tough pill to swallow.

I am very interested in seeing how long that chinese unit lasts. If it lasts 10,000 hrs without a catastrophic failure, it is a good value. I am impressed with the 70db at 3 meters.

 

[Another Ahab]

I am very interested in seeing how long that chinese unit lasts. If it lasts 10,000 hrs without a catastrophic failure, it is a good value. I am impressed with the 70db at 3 meters.

Absolutely. THAT is remarkably quiet considering the size of the unit.

 

[pclausen]

Got it load tested today and all went well.

Startup from cold:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa9XQMMxeC0&feature=youtu.be

That panel rattle went away after a few minutes of running. It comes from the top cover.

Load test:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o69rzvLBf88&feature=youtu.be

I ran it into the ~16kw load for about 1 hour with no issues. Temps and oil pressure stayed within norms. Temp never got above about 165.

Panel info while running:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0ah12wuTsg&feature=youtu.be

I plan to transport it to the permanent location tomorrow and prep the pad site.

 

[Chrispyny]

Pete, update on your genset with the siezed clunk when starting and the rest of your gensets! You can't just walk away from this epic thread. Thread, rise from the dead!

 

[pclausen]

Ok. Thanks for the notice. It got me motivated enough to go pull the head off just now.

So far so good:


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802seize1.JPG

But check out pushrod #2:


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802seize2.JPG

So once I get the head off, it would seem the culprit was massive carbon buildup. I guess a chunk broke free and lodged against that one valve.


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802seize3.JPG

Here's what the head looks like:


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802seize4.JPG

So my plan is to clean out the carbon buildup on the pistons and cylinder walls and make sure the bottom end spins freely and the lifers go up and down like they should.

Then I'll steal one of the 2 remaining rebuilt heads, along with the pushrods from it, and bolt it on this unit. I'll also steal one of the water pumps since the one originally on this genset was leaking. Hopefully that will make this 802 runner #3.

 

[pclausen]

So I did a 2nd take on the pistons and realized that one pistons wasn't supposed to be sitting higher than the other. After vacuuming out the carbon deposits and spraying a little PB Blaster, I put a wrench on the crank and found that only cylinder #2 was moving up and down. So I lowered the piston that was moving to btc and got the #1 piston knocked down with a rubber mallet. I then cleaned the bore to get a smooth wall, and then turned the crank to get both pistons to tdc. Sure enough, piston #1 almost popped all way way out. I was able to extract it the rest of the way with a pipe wrench.

This is what I found:


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802-2-28-01.JPG


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802-2-28-02.JPG


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802-2-28-03.JPG

A look down the bore:

http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802-2-28-04.JPG

So I'm not sure how it was able to turn over with no issues for a while and then this happened...

So if you come across a MEP 80x with a drilled fuel tank, run, don't walk.

As it turns out, this particular unit has a lot of good parts I can use on the 2 I still need to get going, but this would have never been a runner without a complete tear down.

 

[Another Ahab]

Yeah, that doesn't look good.

 

[Chainbreaker]

Wow that is a catastrophic piston failure! Wonder what caused it? Defect in the piston casting?

 

[Chrispyny]

Dang. Sorry to hear.

 

[Guyfang]

Whats the outlook on a new or used engine? Just before I stopped contracting for the Army in 2012, the availability of engines was such a problem, that CECOM was requesting "contingency" funds to procure more engines. According to a CECOM Rep. almost 100 cores, (basic engine) for the MEP-802, and 125 cores for the MEP-803, were "missing" from the Army inventory. Can you maybe find them in Gov. Sales?

 

[pclausen]

So I had some spare cycles to mess with these 802's some more. I buttoned up the one with the blown piston for a later look, and moved on to 802 #4.

This is one of the original 3 that had that really bad rust inside the cylinder walls. I cleaned up the carbon from the pistons and carefully cleaned up the cylinder walls the best I could. I also removed each lifter, one at a time, and disassembled to clean out the old oil and remove all rust deposits. I soaked both injector pumps in diesel for a couple of days and verified that they moved freely. I also carefully cleaned out the lifter and injector bores, and verified that the cam surfaces were nice and smooth. I used assembly lube on all surfaces as I put everything back together.


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802unit4-01.JPG

I put this nice rebuilt head on it:


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802unit4-02.JPG

And added brand new injectors:


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802unit4-03.JPG

Completed assembling the set, new oil, fuel and air filters. Bleed the fuel and coolant and was ready to attempt first start:


http://www.cstone.net/~dk/MEP802unit4-06.JPG

But, it wont't start. Here's a video of me cranking it:

https://youtu.be/C3gxGF2u1r0

I wonder if the slightly pitted cylinder walls are causing it to not built compression, or do I have a fuel delivery issue? When I bled the fuel line, I was getting plenty of fuel at the high pressure lines at the injectors, but I suppose there could still be some air in the lines?

The smoke you see coming out the muffler does not smell like diesel, so I suspect it is just oil left from cleaning up the bores? The pre-heater glow plugs are both working at the intake manifold gets very hot to the touch after about 10 seconds of pre-heating.

Bummed at the prospect of tearing it all back down and having the block hot tanked and do the whole cylinder hone etc, to get the needed compression as I'm very skeptical that's the issue.

What do you guys think?

 

[m-35tom]

if you put new rings in it that is not your problem. if you left the pistons in i am pretty sure you just don't have any compression. put a very liberal amount of penetrating oil (a pint) in each cylinder with the pistons half way up and let it sit for at least a week. pull injectors and crank by hand and then with motor to clear it out some. if you have fuel at the injectors and they are new that should be ok. you will get very slight smoke with low compression and it def will not even try to start. you know, you are spending way more on these than they are worth??

 

[Guyfang]

Did the fuel cutoff solenoid move the fuel rack into the full fuel position? Are you sure the injectors are indexed in the fuel rack properly? Also, it did not sound like the starter was turning over as fast as I remember it should. You know, once I had the devil of a time purging the lines on a 802. You might want to give it another try. And as much as I hate to even mention it, pull the air filter, and give it a VERY short burst of starting fluid spray. I hate the stuff, but just to see if it will fire up for a few seconds. Just to more or less calm your fears, and to prove your work. This is NOT something I would do often. But if it fires with starting fluid, it just might be a fuel delivery problem. Give M-35-toms advice a shot. Have you taken a compression test? If so, how high was it?

 

[JRM]

I also don't think its compression related as I can here the compression stroke very clearly in that video- try to fire it off with wd40 mist I too am not a fan of starting fluid- its meth for diesels as they become addicted quickly. Keep a large rag handy just in case it decides to run away on excessive assy lube. I have a TON of diesel knowledge but a MEP genset newbe, I think its just taking its time priming up the injectors

 

[Another Ahab]

How exactly does the staring fluid make a problem for the engine?

I mean if you can answer that simply (and I know that's not always the case).